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PRESENTED BY 



THE 

AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

OF 

ITHURIEL 

[A Chapter in Psychology] 



By IRONQUILL \> 



tj^A. 



SECOND EDITION 



MONOTYPED AND PRINTED BY 

CRANE & COMPANY 

TOPE K A, KANSAS 
I909 



- ft 
ifmm) 



EXPLANATION. 



The reason this book is called a "Second Edition" is this: 
The original manuscript was prepared prior to, and finished in, 
the year 1890. The writer then being busy, the publication was 
delayed. Afterwards, in the spring of 1905, the writer took 
the manuscript to New York City for publication. In the New 
York Central Depot, in March of that year, the package con- 
taining the manuscript was stolen immediately after his arrival, 
while he was sending off some telegrams in the crow r ded depot. 
Xo copy had been preserved. After much effort and expense 
in trying to regain the lost manuscript, the writer being unsuc- 
cessful set about its reproduction, which was finished in 1909. 
From time to time brief, fugitive and anonymous pieces have ap- 
peared in newspapers, showing that some one was furtively 
using the lost manuscript. The writer believes it to be in a 
certain New York newspaper office, but he has failed in his 
efforts to establish that fact. Hence this book is called a 
second edition. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Sec. Page 

1. Introduction to Preface, 3 

2. Preface. — The Atom. — Divisibility, 8 

3. Shape of the Atom, 9 

4. Color of Atoms, : 9 

5. Weight of Atoms, 10 

6. Atomic Solidity, 11 

7. Texture axd Quality, 11 

8. Size no Criterion, 12 

9. Atomic Motion, 13 

10. All Nature Thinks, 14 

11. Atomic Resistance, • 14 

12. Space and Vacuum, 15 

13. Attraction, 16 

14. The Gift of Direction, .-■ 17 

15. Resultant Motion, 18 

16. Recapitulation, . 19 

17. The Ion, . . • 19 

18. The Molecule, 21 

19. The Corpuscle, 22 

20. Atomic Chiefs, 23 

21. Minerals, 24 

22. Vegetable Life, 25 

23. Illustration, a Walnut Tree, 26 

24. Animal Life. — The Lime Atom, . 27 

25. Leadership, 28 

26. The Upward Current, 29 

27. Disintegration, 30 

28. Invention, ' . 31 

29. Animals, Bad and Good, 32 

30. The Man, .33 

31. The Ego-Atom, 34 

32. The Man-Empire, . . .35 

33. Food, 36 

(5) 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



34. The Soul, - . . 38 

35. The Mind, 39 

36. The Nerves, 40 

37. Language, . 41 

38. Sensation, 42 

39. Ideas, 43 

40. Health, 44 

41. Disease, 45 

42. Action, 47 

43. Messengers, 48 

44. Memory, 49 

45. Death 50 

46. Sleep, 51 

47. Ghosts, 52 

48. Angels, .....' 53 

49. Future Memory, 54 

50. The Scheme of Probabilities, 55 

51. Sex, - . 56 

52. Persistency of Sex, 57 

53. Sex Atoms, 58 

54. Matter and Thought, 59 

55. Telepathy, . 60 

56. The Telepathic Gift, 62 

57. Emotions, 63 

58. Force, 64 

59. Light, . . 65 

60. Heat, 66 

61. Fire, 67 

62. Electricity, 69 

63. Thinking, 70 

64. Thought, 71 

65. Free Will, 72 

66. Prayer, 73 

67. Answers to Prayer, 74 

68. Miracles, 75 

69. Civilization, 76 

70. Evil, 77 

71. Devil, 78 

72. God, 79 

Autobiography, 83 



PREFACE TO THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
ITHURIEL. 



Sectiox 1. — Introduction to Preface. Before me, Ironquill, 
personally appeared Ithuriel ; the archangel, who said to me, 
"Publish what I shall tell you." Then upon a tablet of many 
leaves he began to write, reading aloud as he wrote. Listening, 
I gazed at him steadfastly as he spoke, noticing also that he 
wrote rapidly with a fountain pen of crystal, filled with purple 
ink. When he began he had the seeming of a young man, and 
as he wrote he appeared to grow old, and when he finished in an 
hour he seemed to have the appearance of great age. Then he 
handed me the tablet, saying, "This is my biography; you 
know something of it — we have been brothers thrice." He de- 
parted through the door, which he did not open, as goes a shadow 
through glass. Then upon a typewriter I began to transcribe 
the writing, turning page on page. And as I turned the pages 
the writing which had been transcribed disappeared, leaving 
an odor as of crab-apple blossoms ; and when finished the paper 
from which I copied began to fade away and all that was left 
was a heap of tiny pellicles, which afterwards dissolving, dis- 
appeared. Then I sent the autobiography to a magazine for 
publication, but it was returned charged with being incompre- 
hensible; then I sent it to another magazine and it was again 
returned, the sender saying he could not understand it, and the 
manuscript was marked with queries and interrogatories. Then 

(7) 






THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITHURIEL. 



I determined to write a preface to it and print it myself. The 
preface follows herewith; it is much longer than the autobiog- 
raphy, and it must needs be so, because there is so much to ex- 
plain. But when you have read the preface you can under- 
stand the autobiography and many things else. 

Sec. 2. — Preface. — The Atom. — Divisibility. If into a dark- 
ened room a slender ray of sunshine be admitted, we see myriads 
of motes which, in the broad daylight, are invisible. As we 
watch them floating in the beam of light, in the darkened room, 
they seem to be alive and to hover, undisturbed by the power 
of gravity, like flocks of blithe and airy birds. These motes 
are the smallest visible particles of matter; yet, are huge in 
comparison with the atom. 

In order to get an idea of the atom let us subdivide the mote. 
Matter is not forever divisible. It cannot be divided until 
nothing is left. It cannot be destroyed by subdivisions. There 
is a limit, and there is an ultimate form of matter which is in- 
capable of further subdivision. This form we call the "atom. 
When a particle of matter has been subdivided as long as the 
human mind can contemplate, then what remains is "the atom." 
To illustrate : Suppose we take the smallest mote that is float- 
ing in the sunlight, if we subdivide it into a thousand equal parts 
we have divided it apast microscopic detection. Then if we 
subdivide each part into a thousand we have a million parts; 
this is as far as an abstraction may ordinarily go. If now we 
subdivide each of these parts into a million other parts, then 
we have divided the mote into a thousand billion parts, and this 
is as far, yes much farther, than any mind can contemplate. 
Here we may stop, and call the resultant parts, which as to us 
cannot exist, except in contemplation of mind, an "atom/ 7 



7) 



THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITHURIEL. 9 

It is the end of all subdivision. It is the smallest form of mat- 
ter. 

Therefore we say, bj^ way of definition: An atom is infi- 
nitely small, and is incapable of subdivision. 

Sec. 3. — Shape of the Atom. If the shape of the atom were 
not round it would so become. Roundness gives the most vol- 
ume for the least surface. If there were corners or angles to an 
atom they might be broken off, which would show the atom to 
be fctill divisible, which is contrary to our definition. The round 
shape gives more fluidity, reduces the probability of friction, and 
increases the activity of the atom.. We would as soon think of 
a square rain-drop as a square atom. 

Again, if one atom were larger than another it would show 
that the larger could be reduced in size, and therefore divisible, 
which is contrary to our definition; hence they must be all of 
the same form and size. 

Therefore we say : Atoms are round and uniform in size. 

Sec. 4. — Color of Atoms. Atoms have no quality which 
may be known as color. The phenomenon of color is something 
which pertains to the individual man who experiences it. That 
which looks red to one man may look green to another. In 
fact, all is black and dark around us. When a missile is hurled 
at us, and smites us, it produces a result called "pain"; when 
another substance, such as a sunbeam, strikes us in a certain 
place, the eye, it produces another result, called "light." We 
will treat of this subject further on. Color is an effect produced 
upon the eye of some animal that can see. In the dark, or to a 
blind man, all substances are of the same color. So color is not 
a quality of the substance seen, but a picture in the eye of the 
see-er. Again, if the primordial atoms were all of the same 



10 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITH URIEL. 



shape and substance they would be uniform in color, if any they 
had; that is to say, they would all look alike. Color, as it does 
not pertain to the object, is not objective; but, as it pertains 
to the beholder, is wholly subjective. 

Therefore we say : The atom is without color. 

Sec. 5. — Weight of Atoms. Weight is defined to be the 
measure of the earth's attraction. At the center there is no 
weight, and the f rther a substance is removed from the sur- 
face of the earth the less the attraction. But this explanation 
does not explain. Why the attraction? Simply this: all atoms 
are more or less gregarious. They come to have their likes and 
dislikes, their ambitions and experiences. They may swarm 
together like bees. They unite according to their experiences; 
and according to their habits formed from such experiences. 
They make the hard granite, the oak tree, the mammal. Planets 
are but cities in the great ocean of space, builded from migratory 
atoms. As some atoms are less gregarious than others, just 
as pelicans are less gregarious than crows, it transpires that 
some atoms have a lesser measure of the earth's so-called at- 
traction than others. Therefore weight is not a quality or at- 
tribute of matter, but a mental characteristic of matter, grow- 
ing out of the experience of the atom. 

Atoms have repulsions as well as attractions, the unlike 
repels the unlike, and as atoms come to have different experi- 
ences, the different aggregations differ in experience, gregarious- 
ness, and hence attraction. We will hereafter show how ex- 
perience comes to pass which shapes so strongly the mental con- 
dition of the atom. For the present we will confine ourselves 
to saying that weight is an attribute of mind and not a property 
of matter. I love to visit my friends, never my enemies : this 



THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITHURIEL. 11 

impulse to visit is the phenomenon of attraction. The measure 
of an impulse is called weight; but it does not apply to matter 
as one of its permanent and fundamental properties. 

Therefore we say: Atoms have no such separate property 
as weight. 

„ Sec. 6. — Atomic Solidity. An atom cannot be either per- 
forated, penetrated, abraded, bruised, or crushed, because if so 
it would be divisible. The primordial atom was round and in- 
destructible. It was harder than adamant, because adamant 
is merely a gregarious combination of similar atoms. There is 
nothing to which the hardness of the atom may be compared. 
If it has always existed, or if it is always hereafter to exist, its 
durability, solidity and hardness must be infinite. If it were 
placed upon an anvil and struck at with a steel hammer, the atom 
would not be broken. The atom would fall down through the 
yawning chasms in the metal of the anvil. As well might one 
seek to break a grain of sand by placing it upon the Enchanted 
Mesa of Arizona and beating it with the bushy top of a giant 
sequoia. Fire cannot burn the atom, because fire is made of 
atoms; chemicals cannot change or destroy it, because the 
chemicals themselves are composed of similar atoms. Time can- 
not change the atom, because it loses nothing by time, being 
indivisible. It must be indestructibly hard to be indivisible. 
Therefore we say : Atoms are infinitely hard. 

Sec. 7. — Texture and Quality. In the beginning there were 
Space, Time, and Matter. The matter was uniform in char- 
acter. The primordial atoms were all alike in substance, texture, 
form, and quality. By the term "primordial atoms" we mean 
matter as hereinbefore described, in its ultimately divided and 
originally tenuous form. 



12 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF I TH URIEL. 

There are many things that are unthinkable and unknow- 
able. The origin of matter is unthinkable. It was either 
created out of nothing or else it always existed. Both of these 
cannot be true ; one of them must be true ; but each is unthink- 
able. Some unthinkable propositions are less unthinkable than 
others, and we may adopt the one least unthinkable. As we 
look around us we see that everything has a beginning; hence 
we may say of matter "in the beginning." If matter has all 
been made out of the same stuff [nothing] it would be uniform 
in texture, and if it has always existed it must have been origi- 
nally all alike. "Equality is Equity," and so. we predicate of 
the primordial atoms, — "They were all alike." When we say 
"in the beginning" we do not mean to say that there ever was a 
beginning, so called, but we mean by that expression, time as 
far back as the mind can grasp or think, — the "beginning" of 
our comprehension. 

Therefore we say : Primordial atoms were uniform in shape, 
size, substance, texture, and quality. 

Sec. 8. — Size no Criterion. In the ocean we see an enor- 
mous fish, — the whale. In an aquarium we see a goldfish. The 
brain of the whale is a million times greater than that of the 
goldfish, and yet the capacity and intelligence of the two are 
equal, as far as we can see ; with the odds, if any, in favor of the 
goldfish. In a drop of vinegar the microscope shows us a sportive 
little fish with a capacity and intelligence apparently equal to 
that of the goldfish or the whale. The drop of vinegar is his 
ocean, and we w'atch him with delight because his motions show 
a life of vigor and activity. 

How many times man might repeat this descending analogy 
of life, if our microscopes were stronger, we do not know. Again, 



THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITHURIEL. 13 

the brain of an elephant is a million times larger than the brain 
of an ant ; yet the latter far exceeds the former in knowledge 
and capacity. The ant knows a thousand times more; it builds 
cities; organizes- armies; captures and works slaves, and pro- 
vides for the future. If the ant were as large as the elephant 
the existence of man on the globe would be one of difficulty. 
Let us repeat the descending analogy : Is there anything a million 
times smaller than the ant that has a thousand times as much 
intelligence? Yes! Everlastingly Yes ! We will refer to this 
subject again. 

Therefore we say : Size has no relation to intelligence. 

Sec. 9. — Atomic Motion. If the .earth revolves upon its 
axis, and also revolves around the sun, and the sun is also moving 
through space, then the earth has at least three distinct motions. 
An atom has many more than the sun. But to begin: each 
atom has the power of self-motion. It can whirl upon its axis 
when and as rapidly as it pleases; and why not? It is sur- 
rounded by vacuum, and there is no resistance. All space is 
not filled with atoms, as we shall see. It is as easy to whirl a 
million times a second as a hundred, if there is no resistance. 
The atom can go where it pleases. It could through vacuum 
wing a swift rectilineal flight for a million years. Motion is the 
mere product of will when there is no resistance. Being in San 
Francisco, suppose I wish to go to Xew York. If there were no 
resistance I would upon wishing it instantly arrive in New York. 
And why? Because there are only two steps to be taken : first. 
to will to go; second, to overcome the resistance. When I will 
to go to Xew York I have taken the first step, I have "willed it ; 
there being no resistance, no second step is necessary, and as 
soon as I have willed it I am in Xew York. The flight and 



14 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITHURIEL. 

motion of an atom is a mere matter of will, and it can stop its 
motion as instantaneously as it originates it. Concerning re- 
sistance we will speak later. 

Therefore we say : Atoms have self-inherent power to move 
or stop. 

Sec. 10. — All Nature Thinks. In the atom is the beginning 
of thought. All nature thinks. To a greater or less degree all 
matter is intelligent. Animals think and reason; the vegetable 
world has knowledge and thought ; the mineral world has less, 
but still it knows and thinks. The primordial atom started 
once with only mere consciousness. It could only say "I am." 
Ages afterward it could say to itself " I am immortal." 

In a wonderful way, as we shall see, has this poor little 
feeble-minded atom worked out the first chapter of its destiny. 
It has learned to think ; it has acquired intelligence ; it knows 
and reasons. Intelligence is the power to know and think. 

Therefore we say: All atoms are conscious. Again: All 
atoms may become in some degree intelligent. 

Sec. 11. — Atomic Resistance. The atom has power upon 
its own volition to whirl itself with inconceivable velocity. It 
can begin and stop instantaneously. If it revolves a million 
times a second it can stop inside of its one revolution. It can 
wing an instantaneously rectilinear flight of greatest velocity 
and stop within the limit of its one diameter. It may be asked : 
How can it stop so soon? 

The difficulty in stopping a substance in its rapid flight is 
the difficulty of overcoming the acquired momentum. In 
whirling rapidly the obstacle would be the same. The diffi- 
culty in obtaining a rapid initial velocity would be in over- 
coming the resident inertia. But what is "Momentum" and 



THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITHURIEL. 15 

what is " Inertia' ; ? Momentum is the product of the weight 
multiplied by the velocity. But the atom (as we have seen, 
Sec. 5) has no weight, therefore can have no momentum. So, 
if two atoms should collide the destructive characteristic of 
" momentum " would be wanting. Suppose that two cannon- 
balls should meet in mid-air, and suppose that each of them 
weighted absolutely nothing: what would happen? Each 
would lose its velocity and stay there. Again, Inertia is an ex- 
hibition of the gregarious faculty or habit of the atom. The 
atom, as long as it desires association and seeks it and has it, 
displays the quality which we call Inertia. But as soon as it 
changes its wish, and desires freedom and un-association, the 
characteristic of Inertia becomes immediately wanting; the 
atom then no longer has Inertia. The moment that momentum 
and inertia are paralyzed, then atomic motion is such as the 
atom wishes it to be; and resistance, from those sources, has 
disappeared. Atomic motion may meet resistance through the 
obstruction caused by the confederacy of other atoms, but not 
from the causes mentioned. 

Therefore we say: Atomic motion is not hampered by the 
existence of either inertia or momentum. 

Sec. 12. — Space and Vacuum. Space extends everywhere 
and is eternally infinite. But matter is not theoretically in- 
finite, because if the number of atoms were infinite they would 
of necessity be in such number as to fill infinite space. If all 
space were filled with atoms they would be like sand in a box, 
or apples in a barrel, packed together so that they could not 
move. On the contrary, atoms have great mobility; they oc- 
cupy only a small part of space; their gregariousness brings 
them together in groups. This leaves vast portions of empty 



16 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITHURIEL. 

space subject to constant invasion; but, until so invaded, en- 
during as vacuum. As the atoms are round and hard there is 
an area of vacuum smaller or larger around, or in contact, so to 
speak, with each atom. While the atoms in existence, as to 
number, could not be called " infinite/ ; because they do not fill 
the entire infinitude of space, yet as they are beyond all human 
comprehension, and in contemplation of mind are infinite in 
number, we will say that they are, for all purposes of thought 
and discussion, infinite in number and diffusion. Compress- 
ibility indicates vacuum; the air is full of it. The corpuscles 
of the air are large, coarse, flexible filigree structures, through 
each of which an atom can go like a bee through an arbor of 
honeysuckles. Throughout all the realms of space a vast vacuum 
exists which, at all times, like a great ocean, is in contact with all 
atoms. Every substance is saturated with vacuum; it per- 
vades everything, except the interior of the atom. 

Therefore we say : Vacuum is contiguous to every atom. 

Sec. 13. — Attraction. The gregarious feeling which atoms 
have, comes from their many and varied experiences. En- 
dowed at first with only consciousness, the atom, by its multi- 
farious experiences, develops likes and dislikes. With its hap- 
penings come experience, with the experience comes knowledge, 
with the knowledge comes intelligence. As the atom grows in- 
telligent it acquires in an ascending scale an expanding potency, 
and an intensive impulse. Ultimately this humble atom may 
become the Ego-atom of a man; afterwards higher still. 

Returning to our subject: we find the atom, as stated, de- 
veloping likes and dislikes; the mechanical names for which 
are "attraction" and " repulsion." As size is no criterion of 
intelligence (Sec. 8), these minute atoms have acquired eager 



THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITHURIEL. 17 

friendships and bitter hatreds. This is indicated in some of the 
so-eailed ,; chemical affinities. " There is such a thing between 
separated atoms as a pull or a push: that is, there is a desire on 
the part of one atom to go to meet another, or to shun and 
avoid another. If both atoms desire it they will meet; if they 
do not wish to meet they will not meet. When they meet they 
may wish to remain together. Atoms may be unsocial to each 
other, and refuse, like oil and water, to unite; the friendship of 
some atoms to each other is only rivaled by their hatred to others. 
These habits have by long experience and repetition become 
fixed and constant. 

Therefore we say : Attraction and repulsion, among atoms, 
are habits of thought and action. 

Sec. 14. — The Gift of. Direction. If separated from each 
other, in the vast distances of the universe, two magnets, un- 
known to each other, were placed, they would immediately, if 
no obstacles were encountered, proceed toward each other. Xo 
matter what the distance might be, nor how feeble the attraction, 
if there were no resistance they would immediately proceed to 
hunt for each other and with accelerated velocity unite. If a 
pigeon being carried far from home in a dark box be released it 
will describe a circle, until it gets the direction, and then will fly 
straightway home. Other animals, also insects and fishes, have 
the same gift of direction: but the gift is more directly appli- 
cable to the atom than to any combination of atoms. 

Attraction is a habit, and it exists in a greater or less degree 
in the individual atom, according to its experience. Atoms 
may unite from any distance, but the pull must be reciprocal. A 
sailor by pulling on a rope may move his boat in the direction 
of the rope ; but if the rope is not fastened he can make no prog- 



18 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITHURIEL. 

ress with the boat. Therefore atoms seek each other by mutual 
desire and inclination. This mutual inclination develops the 
pull ; and the pull gives the knowledge of the direction. But 
the inclination must be mutual or there will be no pull. Hence 
two atoms that wish to find each other can always do so, no 
matter where they may be situated, or how far apart. Their 
unitation, then, only depends upon the obstacles to be over- 
come in the path between them. 

Therefore we say : Atoms have the gift of direction. 

Sec. 15. — Resultant Motion. Two or three or more, or 
many more, atoms may stand motionless by each other, side by 
side; or spinning with equal velocity may, by contact at the 
poles, resemble a string of whirling beads. Or two of them may 
constitute a di-atom and whirl around each other; or three or 
more may whirl together on a plane. Or forty, or four million, 
of them may form a coalescence of motion, weaving in and out. 
There is no limit to the eccentric and concentric motions which 
these atoms may acquire or assume. Floating in vacuum, with 
power of motion at will, they may adopt any form of simple or 
complex effort, and may weave out any form of lace-like motion. 
Atoms of the same habits will organize in the same way. Re- 
sultant motions go from the simple to the complex. There is 
no limit to the complexity of organization and of habit. These 
habits may, as a growth of experience and of intelligence, change. 
The original atomic motions were only two, the rectilineal 
and the whirl. Both could be used at the same time. From 
these, by combination, a vast number of resultant motions 
have originated, both complicated and intricate. These com- 



THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITH URIEL. 19 

binations denote an evolution of intelligence through ex- 
perience. 

Therefore we say: Resultant motion denotes progress. 

Sec. 16. — Recapitulation. The phrase, "Primordial Atom/' 
as herein used, denotes the atom which existed back "in the 
beginning"; that is, at the earliest time which mind can con- 
template. Whether it existed before that time is unknowable 
and unthinkable. But "in the beginning" it was as follows: 
The Primordial Atom was infinitely small, and infinitely hard. 
It was round, indivisible, eternal, and indestructible. It 
had neither color nor weight. It manifested neither inertia 
nor momentum. All atoms were uniform in shape, size, sub- 
stance, texture, and quality. Each w^as in some degree con- 
scious, and capable of becoming intelligent. Each was sur- 
rounded by vacuum, greater or less in extent. Each had origi- 
nally two separate motions, rotary and rectilinear. Each had 
a self-inherent power to move or stop. Each had the gift of di- 
rection. Each had the power of combination, and of the de- 
velopment of forms of associated motion. Each was capable 
of forming likes and dislikes, and developing the faculty of at- 
traction and of repulsion. 

We shall hereafter see what great events and achievements 
came from these humble conditions. They came through com- 
bination. There supervened three original fundamental com- 
binations; and from these three all others have been formed. 
These were : 

1. The Ion-; then afterwards, 

2. The Molecule, or else 

3. The Corpuscle. 

Sec. 17. — The Ion. Atoms in course of time undergo va- 



20 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITHURIEL. 

rious experiences ; acquire various likes and dislikes, and develop 
various forms of habit. Atoms of similar likes, habits and mo- 
tions come together and organize little families which are the 
units of organization. These are called Ions. Although each 
Ion is made up of similars, yet one Ion may be totally dissimilar 
from another Ion. Each Ion is, as to itself, homogeneous. 
Though many of the Ions are alike, each to each, Ions are di- 
vided into a vast number of genera. Each genus is composed 
of similar Ions which have each separately and individually 
organized with atoms identically similar, and with similar 
atomic motion. 

To illustrate, suppose, upon a lawn, we attempt to arrange 
or pile cannon-balls: we can lay them in a line, we can form 
triangles, squares, and hexagons ; we can form various kinds of 
pyramids, all of which will be regular in form. We cannot add 
motion to these, and as to motion our illustration is faulty. 
The Ions have not only all regular arrangements of shape, but 
all regular varieties of atomic interlocking motion, each Ion 
being a family and a formation to itself apart. 

The Ion as such has an ionic motion. Suppose that an Ion 
had a motion around a circle one-eighth of an inch in diameter, 
and that it had a velocity equal to that of the earth around the 
sun. The orbital velocity would be so great that the Ion would 
form a ring and weT could handle it as a ring ; and if such orbits, 
as to several Ions, were made interlocking, the Ions would hold 
together as a chain. We have made the orbit, for illustration, 
one-eighth, inch for the purpose of making it tangible to thought ; 
as a fact the orbit would be many hundred thousand times 
smaller. 

The atoms in the Ion may be one diameter, or a hundred or a 



THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITHURIEL. 21 

thousand diameters, from one another, — each surrounded by 
vacuum, but by its interlocking motion adhering to the Ion. 

Sec. 18. — The Molecule. The molecule is a combination of 
similar ions. The ion is, as stated, a family composed of similar 
atoms; they are combined as to numbers and motion, accord- 
ing to the special habits of the individual atoms. There may 
be combined in the Ion few or many — ten or a million — just as 
the custom and habits of the atom and the family warrant. 
Quite in the same way these families coalesce into race-com- 
munities; these are the molecules. These molecules are, as to 
one another, divided into genera, because each molecule must 
be composed of similar ions ; hence, as ions vary, so the mole- 
cule varies. A vast number of molecules may be just alike; 
another vast number may be quite different from the former 
but among themselves be just alike. The molecule is the con- 
stituent of what is known in chemistry as the "Element." The 
"elements" are metals and metalloids, and may be represented 
by gold, iron, sulphur, iodine, oxygen, etc., etc. These funda- 
mental elements are each undecomposable into anything but 
one pure form of matter. Their interior formation in a faint 
way may be illustrated as follows: Suppose we pile up a tri- 
angular pyramid composed of ten balls, it would be three balls 
on each side and three balls high. These floating in space and 
having an interlocking motion would compose an entity, or a 
family, and we would call it an "ion." If twenty of these were 
placed point to point the3 T would compose a figure nearly round, 
a dodecahedron. These latter could unite, the same as the 
balls in the first place did, and by succession of imitation they 
would arrive at any desired bulk. Suppose again that we pile 
the balls into a four-square pyramid: this takes thirty; here 



22 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITHURIEL. 

we have an ion of a different shape. If we take six of these and 
unite them at the apex of each we have a cube. These cubes 
can unite and form larger cubes ; and so on, ad infinitum. All 
of these substances are held together by their interlocking motion. 
As these substances, the ions ; unite and reunite by accretion, 
this interlocking motion is adjusted and re-adjusted. Between 
similar molecules there is a family affinity — a molecular attrac- 
tion, which gives rise and opportunity to the interlocking mo- 
tion. 

Sec. 19. — The Corpuscle. The Corpuscle is a coalition of 
dissimilar ions, wherein it differs from the molecule, which is 
a coalition of similar ions. Great variety comes from the union 
of dissimilar ions. Corpuscles themselves exist in genera; that 
is to say, certain forms of ions unite readily w T ith other certain 
forms and make a special corpuscular genus. This can be easily 
understood if we imagine the great number of forms which ions 
assume. Ions may be flat and form flat triangles, squares, 
stars, or any other regular flat shape; they may form lines, 
crosses, or rings; they may form pyramids, cylinders, or cubes. 
In short, there are very many regular shapes which the ion 
may assume, so that the corpuscle, by permutation, may also 
assume a still greater variety. However, by no means can any 
one ion unite with all other ions ; on the contrary, each variety 
can unite with only a few of the other varieties. Sometimes 
three or four may thus unite together. Only those can unite 
which can rearrange their interlocking motions at the points 
of contact. If by reason of different and contra-symmetric 
arrangement such interlocking motions cannot be arranged, 
then there can be no union or adherence. This union is easily 
arranged between ions of the same family, but is generally im- 



THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITHURIEL. 23 

possible between dissimilar families. There can be no union of 
ions, unless, where their facets or sides come together, there is 
organized and established an interlocking atomic motion; and 
when corpuscles coalesce there must be established this inter- 
locking orbital movement. The corpuscle, although formed 
from different families, follows the habits and customs of its 
genus, acquired through great periods of time. 

Sec. 20. — Atomic Chiefs. There can be no union without 
thought. Things insensate cannot combine. Atoms do not 
combine by accident. Thought is incorporatedin to every ef- 
fort-. In every ion there is one atom more intelligent than the 
rest, who by reason of such intelligence assumes control. When 
ions combine into molecules or corpuscles the union takes place 
only through the efforts of the atomic chiefs. These chiefs 
fight among themselves like fowls in a barn-yard, until the ques- 
tion of superiority is settled. The question of dominancy being 
established, the combination assumes permanency. In all such 
organisms there must be a paramount atom, and, in the process 
of ascertainment as to who it shall be, ions are ground up, en- 
slaved, banished, or persuaded. Indeed, in the formation of 
a corpuscle, the prevailing atom may disband his entourage and 
form -a new ion, from his subordinate chiefs, or from his most 
potent tribesmen, and hold this new ion together, in the cor- 
puscle, as a body-guard and council. As corpuscles are composed 
of different families, some of them may be said to be held in the 
organization through fear, some are cajoled to remain, others, 
feeling themselves to be of patrician type, may desire to have 
around them those whom they command and those over whom 
they may swagger. All this may be easily understood when we 
think that each of these atoms has had ages and ages of expe- 



24 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF I TH URIEL. 

rience, has through endurance and distress acquired more or 
less intelligence, and is feeling more or less the impulse of an 
insatiate ambition. With the leadership of the ion begins the 
lust for rule ; which, as we shall see, is never lost. 

Sec. 21. — Minerals. Minerals are living things. They are 
composed of the metals or of the metalloids in various propor- 
tions and combinations. Each crystal is built up through ages 
of atomic and ionic experiment and habit. Each mineral has 
its separate angle of crystallization; it always crystallizes upon 
the angle of its clan. Minerals sometimes hybridize, then they 
crystallize upon the clan-forms combined. Why do minerals 
from all parts of the world follow a prevailing family type? 
Simply this : the ion is a type ; the molecule or the corpuscle 
assumes a clan-shape from the shape of the ions. It dates back 
before the earth was begun. The molecules or the corpuscles 
combine and the clan-shape is continued and preserved. To the 
control of every combination comes a dominant chief. These 
combinations are made and re-made, are formed, destroyed and 
re-formed. Experienced rulers are always at hand to build a 
growing empire whenever an opportunity to begin is presented. 
From anarchy comes empire. 

Look at the snowflakes — they are always six-cornered; why 
do not some of them form octagons; why, at times, are not 
some of them five-pointed? Simply this: the clan-shape is 
hexagonal, they have been organized in this way for ages, their 
leaders know no other form of tactics, the soldiers know no other 
drill; it is their habit and custom, like that of the Chinese to 
wear pigtails. From observation we know that the corpuscles 
of water are three-cornered ; we see plants growing from it built 



THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF I TH URIEL. 25 

on the order of three, from the humble water lily to the giant 
palm ; we see it in the snowflake and the ice. 

Sec. 22. — Vegetable Life. Upon the granite rock adhere 
the moss, the lichen, and the cactus; they are the humblest 
missionaries of their race. They coax, persuade and tear the 
atoms from their long and cheerless vocation, or servitude, and 
lead them up toward a higher form of existence. All vegetable 
life has thought, intelligence, and ambition. All vegetable life 
is corpuscular. Here ions and corpuscles are formed and re- 
formed. Here their chiefs learn better how to organize. Here 
the atoms are fired with a new ambition. Each plant has its 
sole and separate chief. The adamantine granite crumbles be- 
neath the arguments and the efforts of these humble evangelists. 
When the moss, the lichen and the cactus have lived their lives, 
the atoms and the ions fall to the soil ready to be enlisted or 
conscripted by the aspen and the pine. These atoms and these 
ions are ignorant but ambitious; they are recruits; they are 
at first only hewers of wood and drawers of water. They can- 
not without great experience and observation ever expect to be 
able to organize and build so complicated a structure as a pine 
tree or a lily. And yet each particular plant, simple or complex, 
from the mildew to the redwood, is organized and carried through, 
from birth to death, by a single, intelligent, industrious, pains- 
taking, experienced atom. He has his couriers and his aides- 
de-camp, going hither and thither. He has his engineers and 
brigades tunneling the ground and bringing in recruits. He has 
his organizers directing the movements of the veterans and of 
the reinforcements, projecting buds, making leaves, construct- 
ing flowers, and producing fruits. These things are not done by 
accident. They are not miracles. They are done by those who 



26 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITHURIEL. 

know how; who have done it before and who are to do it again. 
What is it? Our ancestors called it "instinct"; they were 
right; "instinct" is intelligence, which our ancestors did not 
fully understand, but which they knew existed. The long and 
exact continuity of the phenomenon shows that it is neither 
accidental nor miraculous. 

Sec. 23. — Illustration, a Walnut Tree. Upon the granite 
gravel, torn from the ledge above it, fell a lifeless cactus. The 
cactus-chief and some of his ambitious atoms were then re- 
cruited by the threadlike roots of a gigantic pine. Hurried, 
with throngs of others, along the roadways, as in a mine, they 
reached the bottom of the shaft. Here were headquarters ; here 
they were inspected, allotted and assigned. In course of years 
the cactus-chief showed great proficiency. Once a bolt of 
lightning separated him from the tree and hurled him to the 
ground, but he knew how to get back speedily through the roots. 
He in time understood fully the structure, mechanism, habits 
and customs of the pine. He was finally detailed as a staff 
officer, and impressed his chief so much that the latter detailed 
him to command a colony. He had learned his trade and was 
ready to graduate. Gathering around himself a brigade of 
friendly, intelligent and subordinate corpuscles, he organized 
a pine-nut, bade adieu to his pine home, and started out upon a 
career of .his own. But a beast stepped upon the pine-nut and 
a flooding stream carried it afar, mangled and incapable, where 
it lay disorganizing upon alluvial soil a thousand miles from 
home, mid strange and alien races. The pine-chief had many 
invitations to enlist, but rejected all. He was in grievous mind 
' until a call from a black- walnut commissioner invited the chief 
and what was left of his colony into a black-walnut organization. 



THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITHURIEL. 27 



They went with apprehension and misgivings. But the cactus- 
chief, who had become a pine-chief, had had much experience ; 
he had become a ruler — not a born ruler of atoms, but a ruler — 
and he diligently set about to learn the walnut business and to 
make himself and his influence felt. Right well did he succeed; 
he became an accomplished walnut-builder. When as a colonist 
he had built a walnut tree, he started out and built another, and 
he gloried in the long line of his accomplishments. When a 
venture failed, as to a colony, he knew how to get back; and 
for over three thousand years he did nothing but build walnut 
trees, and he taught millions of others. How he came to quit 
will be told further on. 

Sec. 24. — Animal Life. — The Lime Atom. Upon a hillside 
a tuft of bluegrass recruited an atom of lime. Long had it been 
a limestone atom weary for promotion. It had come from the 
sun in a ray of light, for light is a substance containing all the 
elements : falling upon the wave it caused a sparkle as it sank. 
A polyp took it up and built it kindly into a coral reef, which in 
brief, inactive centuries rose slowly and became the framework 
of a continent. The bluegrass tuft was sending up a spire, and 
needed the atom to strengthen the cylinder. The little plant 
was an accomplished architect, and had the traditional experi- 
ence of a hundred millenniums. And so the little lime atom 
became, for an era, a grass atom. Being earnest and ambitious, 
it had experience thereafter in various grasses whose govern- 
ments were quite alike, — rye, millet, wheat, maize. Blown 
away one day by a tornado, it was left where the recruiting 
officer of an apple tree induced it to join. In after times it had 
learned to build apple trees. It always clung to its little ionic 
family and preserved the lime family traditions. The atom 



28 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF I TH URIEL. 

was now a leader. Once his tree was burned and he was among 
the ashes, a simple little lime-ion, but he was soon again in busi- 
ness building apple trees, and again, with the experience of a 
leader, gathering and organizing the millions around him. One 
day, as an apple seed, he started out with a colony, but a hungry 
bird came and devoured him. Here was a new world, a new 
experience, and he entered into it with zest and pleasure. Most 
of his corpuscular comrades were finally rejected, but he was re- 
tained. "A lime atom with experience," said the recruiting 
officer, "just what we want; get your ion into line here; take 
charge of this squad of lime recruits." Then a corporal showed 
him the way, and marched him off and embarked him in an 
artery with directions. Said the corporal on parting, "We are 
building our bones more hollow than formerly, so as to make 
more storage room for photographs. It is the only place we can 
put them to advantage. Memory is constantly taking them 
and sending them to us for storage, and we have to file them away 
where they can be had on call. Want of order 'makes much 
trouble in that department." 

Sec. 25. — Leadership. Each grade of existence, generally 
speaking, feeds upon the most developed of the grade below, 
but the walnut cannot grow among the granite gravel with the 
pine; wheat cannot grow with the cactus. Trees are univer- 
sities where atoms are further educated. Each such university 
must enlist such atoms as have had the rudimentary education 
which fits them for the curriculum of the tree. There is con- 
stant education rising from the lower to the higher life. Prog- 
ress comes up gradually from the crystal. Every atom, with 
more or less intensity, is, so to speak, hunting a job. Experi- 
ence in one sphere of work fits the atom and the ion for employ- 



THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITHURIEL. 29 

ment and success in another. Thrown back from time to time, 
the atom still, in the long run, makes constant progress. Apti- 
tude in one direction develops aptitude in another. Progress 
may at times be checked, ambitions retarded, and hopes deferred ; 
but the impetus will be regained and progress will push ahead 
with redoubled speed and zeal. The atom learns the "know- 
how"; although thrown back, it can plan and accomplish its 
own reinstatements ; retarded in one place, it can rise to equal 
heights in another. This is because experience brings power, 
power and experience develop leadership, and everywhere, from 
the crystal to the archangel, leadership is recognized. It is not 
alone among men that leadership is potent and will win ; the 
atom, the ion, the molecule and the corpuscle all equally seek, 
demand and employ it. When once acquired, the faculty of 
leadership remains ; and although clouded, perhaps, by tempo- 
rary disaster, or inoperative by reason of adverse conditions, it, 
from its latent lodging, comes forward unevoked like the crocus 
in the spring. 

Sec. 26. — The Upward Current. In the ascending scale 
the motto is always the selection of the best. The plant selects 
the best, the animal selects the best, man selects the best; so, 
there is a constantly ascending scale. Upon a prairie there is 
growing a luxuriant crop of grass ; the pioneer with his break- 
ing-plow turns it under and sows wheat. The yield is prolific; 
and why? Because the wheat plant finds ready for enlistment 
myriads of educated grass atoms that can do good work in wheat ; 
because grass and wheat are built alike. Plant a tree there, and 
it languishes. Trees need tree atoms; but in time an orchard 
will educate its own atoms. When the wheat crops have, in 
the course of years, exhausted the educated atoms which were 



30 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITHURIEL. 

originally found, the crops will then languish like the tree, and 
the ground must be fertilized, that is, supplied with educated 
atoms. Scientific agriculture is based upon the theory of the 
education and use of atoms. The earliest vegetables are those 
which show the most progressive energy; the largest are those 
which show most comprehensive leadership ; and man, for food, 
instinctively prefers them both. So there is ever an upward 
current, rising higher and higher, with a more ample scope and 
a more brilliant future. In one sense it is all evolution, in an- 
other it is aspiration and development; whether we call it 
evolution, aspiration, or development, it is all intellectual, and 
it comes from the storing-up and use of experience. All this 
upward progress is from the experience of the individual; all 
evolution is from internal origin; it is from the below and the 
within. No plant can make a crystal, no beast can make a 
plant, no man can make a crystal, a plant or a beast; no God 
can make a man. So, from within and below, the current is 
ever upward. Inspiration and aspiration. 

Sec. 27. — Disintegration. Each family of plants has its era 
of growth, magnificence, and ruin. Conditions change and 
plants exterminate each other. Like men, they have their likes 
and dislikes, and one family drives another from the earth. The 
cedar of Lebanon is now besieged in its Syrian stronghold to 
which it has retreated : it will soon capitulate ; it is surrounded 
and cannot escape. In the groves the maple pushes the elm 
to one side, and the box-elder pushes the sycamore. If trees 
were not securely fastened down they would fight each other 
more fiercely than men. As it is the tree-clans drive each other 
singly and by forests. The fishes, the birds and the animals 
drive each other. All nature is in a war of competition, and in 



THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITHURIEL. 31 

this great rivalry, when the armies of one are destroyed, its 
race-atoms, like janizaries, enter into the service of another and 
keep the discord fervent. The destruction of a race of plants 
or animals brings about a disintegration of the entire organism 
down to the very ion. When a tree is burned in the furnace, 
its leaders are gone; there are left but a few inert minerals 
called ashes, and these are ready then to respond quickly and 
enlist in any new form of life. The leaders, invisible to us, 
singly and with ions, seek new employment ; and with a friendly 
group, if perchance they may find it. But back again to work 
they go, like a wandering iEneas, to build up elsewhere the for- 
tunes they have lost. Hence it is that molecules and corpuscles, 
families and clans, are crumbling and re-forming, combining and 
re-combining, ever and ever and ever. And out of it all comes 
an experience, a progress, and an uplift. 

Sec. 28. — Invention. A willow-atom after long experience 
was enlisted by an oak. In course of time, having the faculty 
of leadership, the atom became a member of the staff and chief 
of the executive committee. There were many other willow- 
atoms in the organization. "I have an idea," said the willow- 
atom; "let me select a colony and go forth." The oak-atom 
said, "You may go." It went forth and made a "willow-leafed 
oak." Experience is grafted on experience, and strange forms 
result. Intelligence is modified by intelligence, struggles are 
parried by events, efforts go oblique. Where these happen, 
differentiation begins. In one sense all plant life is hybrid. 
When an atom has had experience in two different forms of plant 
life, suggestions come to it as to a third. When an atom has 
had long experience in one form, suggestions for improvement 
receive attention. Hence there is constant change and improve- 



32 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITHURIEL. 

ment ; and alongside of it constant change and failure. There 
is no evolution except the evolution of intelligence; and it is only 
a differentiation by invention. It comes from within the thing 
invented. It is not a creation; it is a new combination. The 
Centaur was a weak invention, and our Greek ancestors assisted 
in its extermination and claimed all of the glory. The dragon 
was a dangerous invention, and our ancestor St. George fought 
it nobly. The Chinese, after its extermination, used it as an 
emblem on account of its native ferocity. Through myth and 
tradition many forms are brought down to us that once existed, 
but which are now as extinct as the pterodactyl. Although new 
and strange forms are constantly being invented, few of them 
survive. The six-legged calf and the two-headed sheep are in- 
stances. 

Man has come up through a steady line of invention from the 
atom ; through a steady line of accretionary development. Side- 
shoots have sprung out all along the line, but they have Been 
mostly failures. The monkey is one of them, the pigmy is an- 
other, — both failures. 

Sec. 29. — Animals — Bad and Good. Wild animals, have 
such dispositions as their constituent atoms prescribe and per- 
mit. These dispositions change, and new traits appear, under 
domestication. The turkey becomes much less vain than in his 
wild state, the dog becomes more faithful, and the cat more 
affectionate. But there are some animals, and living things, 
that are not worth taming, and would be of no value if tamed. 
The hornet, the snake, the hawk, the wolf, the shark, — each of 
these is a combination of bad atoms, and should be destroyed. 
It is the duty of the human race to exterminate these bad com- 
binations. They are aggregations of cruelty, selfishness, and 



THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITH URIEL. 33 

ferocity. These atoms can, so to speak, be mustered out. They 
can be thrown back, disorganized and compelled to start anew. 
Life is a competition in destruction. A good man is the best 
animal yet created on earth, and his period of duration thereon 
is governed by his ability to slay, in self-defense, his unworthy 
competitors. They all need another and a better start. From 
bad atoms come the germs of fierce diseases attacking man; 
from bad atoms develop cruel forms of intermediate life, such 
as the cobra, the tiger, and the kite. Let them all be sent back ; 
let them all be reeducated. With better associations, and with 
more experience, they will come up again, improved. 

Those vices which flourish by sufferance are the nurseries 
of barbarism. Civilization and progress mean war; and the 
war must be continuous. Not more continuous, however, than 
the victory. Extermination of vicious combinations must pro- 
ceed up the line from the bacillus to the bandit. Progress will 
have a potent force to help it forward, in this, that barbarism 
hates barbarism, the wolf eats the wounded wolf, the killer kills 
the killer, and the robber loves to rob the robber. 

Sec. 30. — The Man. The microscopic origin of the man is 
the spermatozo-oid ; we can trace it as, increasing from six to 
twelve billion times in growth, it ultimately becomes a man; 
yet the primordial atom by accretion, association and organi- 
zation had increased from six to twelve billion times to become 
such a spermatozo-oid. The atom is infinitely small; man is 
only half-way up the ladder. As the crystal is but a selected 
community of educated and fraternal atoms, so a plant is a se- 
lection from experienced crystals. The plant is an alembic, 
and its fruit and seeds are merely distillates. The lower beasts 
take up and re-distill the plant product. Each plant and ani- 



34 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITH URIEL. 

mal is a bundle of its inferiors; in other words, the best army 
which its chief can recruit. A sheep is a by-product of the dis- 
tillation of nearly every element in the universe. Man eats the 
sheep and it is re-distilled. Man is a still higher product and is 
himself re-distilled. Above him go a thousand grades of suc- 
cessive distillation. In the vast retort, of what is called nature, 
the process of continual selection, by which intelligence and 
leadership may, after segregation, combine and rise, has been 
of very long duration. There is much for us to aspire to. Far 
down in the scale of real efficiency and excellency is vain, self- 
conceited man; to those above him he belongs to the Crustacea. 
He lives on the bottom of the ocean of the atmosphere. Yet he 
deserves no sneer, and he will receive from us herein much de- 
served attention. 

Each man is a separate proposition; each is differently 
organized; each has tendencies one way or another; and each 
has a different aptitude. And it is so because each has selected 
atoms of different history, education, and experience. One has 
many atoms of the vulture, the serpent, and the wolf ; the other 
of the ox, the lion, and the albatross. Everything is woven in 
a similar loom, but all the patterns are different. No two men 
can be alike any more than two regiments in the United States 
army might be recruited from men of similar names. 

Sec. 31. — The Ego-Atom. Each man is an empire, at the 
head of which is a constitutional monarch. This empire has 
billions of subjects, all under considerable control. The em- 
peror, the Ego-atom, has had abundant test; he has been in 
places of subordination and of command; he has held almost 
every office, and knows how to rule. He has organized crystals, 
he has builded grass and shrubs and trees ; he has occupied all 



THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITHURIEL. 35 

official situations from corporal to general. While dominant 
in bluegrass he has been eaten ; as master of an oak he has been 
felled. He has lived with beasts and birds and fishes. He has 
been thrown down hard a thousand times; his experience in 
leadership covers a million years. From one of his former 
reigns his face may show that his latest dominant existence was 
that of a lion or a sheep ; yet, nevertheless, he has had a long 
subordinate apprenticeship in man. His human empire in in- 
fancy was small, but enlargement soon began, and he followed 
his latest teachings and traditions, modified, to some extent, by 
the experience gained during his most protracted ascendency 
in some lower form. Thus we see in human face and fashion 
many of the animals and birds with which we are familiar. 

We have observed trout trying to surmount a waterfall; 
how the strong succeed and how the weaker try and try, and 
fail and fail ; but after time through growth and effort they too 
succeed. It is so with man in reaching higher levels. At all 
times the atom is in command until the empire is destroyed, or 
the emperor driven from his throne. This Ego-atom is our- 
selves. Each of us is it. Each of us is but an atom, a single 
atom. And this same atom was originally hard and round and 
indestructible, and had consciousness and motion and the gift 
of direction. It has now acquired much intelligence, the power 
and habit of leadership, an increased ambition, and is going 
forward at a swift rate to a glorious and logical future. 

Sec. 32. — The Man-Empire. All political empires have 
their periods of growth, prosperity, and decay. It is so with the 
atom-empire which we call "man." All empires decline in the 
same manner: first, the legislative branch becomes weak or 
corrupt; then, the judiciary system becomes feeble and the sense 



36 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITH URIEL. 

of right and wrong becomes relaxed; then, the executive de- 
partment breaks down, and the empire is lost. The man- 
empire is a vast empire in numbers; and, as in a political em- 
pire, in it there must be patriotism, honesty, conciliation, and 
what is known^s public virtue. The two great forces of a nation 
are its soldiers and its students. The first resists invasion and 
insurrection and is protective, — the latter invents, discovers, 
and reveals ; it is progressive. The enemies of political society 
are greed, disordered ambition, senseless vanity, cruelty, men- 
dacity, and idleness. These vices have the same effect upon the 
empire below as they have on the empire above. The little 
empire suffers exactly as the great empire. One is an empire 
of atoms and the other an empire of empires. A nation suffers 
from the same vices as those from which a state would suffer, 
a state suffers from the same vices as those from which a city 
would suffer ; the man suffers the same as a city, the corpuscle 
the same as the man. The same rule holds good from top to 
bottom, from angel to atom. 

In the atom-empire of man, as in the higher empire of men, 
the administration, to be the best, must be lofty, and just, and 
pure, and firm; not rapacious, not vain-glorious, not cruel. In 
the little empire the faults and vices of administration can be 
no more hidden than in the larger. In the little empire, as in 
the greater, follies of administration work the same results, — 
dissatisfaction, emigration, and insurrection; its soldiers desert, 
its students depart, then comes anarchy followed by destruction, 
which we call "death." The only way for the little atom- 
empire to succeed is that it cause confidence, respect, patriotism 
and decency to prevail. 

Sec. 33. — Food. A toad eats a wasp; a serpent swallows 



THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITHURIEL, 37 

the toad; a wild hog devours the serpent. This happens time 
and time again in the order of varied circumstance. The wild 
hog becomes an assembly of pernicious atoms. A hunter in 
pursuit of game slays the wild hog and bears it home in triumph 
to be eaten. The hunter by his food receives some strange ac- 
cessions — the wasp-atom, the toad-atom, the snake-atom, the 
wild-hog-atom. They have not yet learned the language, as 
will be hereinafter explained, and hence the hunter himself 
suffers but little, but his children will pay a thousand penalties. 
The evil that men do lives after them; the wasp, the toad, the 
snake, the wild swine may appear in the disposition of children 
and of children's children. 

Progress can only be reached through purity of food and 
purity in life. The purity of the parent rescues the child. 
Moses understood this, and distinguished between the clean and 
the unclean. From the farm, where the food is composed of 
domesticated grains, and meat grown therefrom, must come 
the cultivated vigor that shall reinforce the civilization which 
grows decadent in the city. Every human being is the product 
of its parents' food. There is salvation in purity of thought and 
life. It has taken man millions of years to get up where he is. 
Therefore eat the best meats, the best fruits, the best grains, 
the best of everything; but let it all be civilized, domesticated, 
and of pure origin. Do not shun meats; vegetarianism is a 
mistake; but do shun barbarism, shun "game," shun wildness. 
The sudden millionaire, who has not become acclimated to 
wealth, begins to be an epicure, new foods from all corners of the 
earth are his ; he eats strange victuals ; chefs concoct him strange 
dishes from far-off lands; he acquires a liking for "game," 
gamey meats and exotic viands. He does not suffer — not very 



38 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITH URIEL. 

much — but his children pay the penalty; he and the world 
wonder whence their dispositions and their worthlessness. The 
children of the farm take their places. Blessed are the pure in 
stomach ; for their children shall see the fruition of hope. 

Sec. 34. — The Soul. The Ego-atom is related to the cor- 
poreal man, just the same as the emperor is to the empire. The 
emperor is not the governing power, but is the chairman of the 
committee which does govern. He alone could not control the 
empire ; he must have a staff , a council; an army. In man the 
Ego-atom is the chairman of the soul. He has around him a 
council magnificent in numbers, organization, and experience. 
He has brigades of aides-de-camp, couriers, orderlies, messengers. 
He has judges and advisers. He has an army. He has a legis- 
lature which debates, discusses, and decides. This vast entou- 
rage manages for the most part the internal affairs of the empire. 
Its danger point is that of external contact. This is the principal 
sphere of duty of the Ego-atom; he deals with the outside 
world. He is his own secretary of foreign affairs. When he 
deals with internal conditions it is only as they are brought 
specifically to his attention. The legislature, although con- 
stantly undergoing somewhat of a change, is nevertheless almost 
continually in session. Some of these deliberations we call 
" unconscious cerebration/' when the Ego-atom is absent or busy. 
These deliberations govern internal affairs, and at times make 
recommendation to the emperor as to foreign affairs. The same 
with the judiciary. The constituency of these assemblies are 
not wholly of the emperor's choosing, although he can much 
influence their selection; he can refuse to listen to them; can 
and does disobey their mandates, and may disregard their ad- 
vice. He has independence and predominating power, but he 



THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITHURIEL. 39 

is supreme only in rank; he cannot control the thought or de- 
cisions of the subordinate departments. Therefore there is a 
sort of a triality in man — the thinking, the doing, and the judg- 
ing. But the Ego-atom is paramount in rule, has.the veto power, 
and can destroy the organization at any time, as is occasionally 
done, by so-called " suicide. " He and his entourage constitute 
the "Soul." 

Sec. 35. — The Mind. As has been stated, the Ego-atom 
has around him administrative, legislative and judicial forces; 
they constitute his cabinet and are ready at his call. In con- 
tact with outside matters many serious questions arise, ques- 
tions of right, expedience, and duty. Many of these are sub- 
mitted to the cabinet. The Ego-atom listens to the discussion; 
this is called " meditation." When the discussion is master- 
ful, about evenly divided and prolonged, and the Ego-atom is 
alternately convinced, this is " vacillation." When a strong 
consensus condemns an act as unjust or a certain proposed pro- 
cedure as wrong , this is "conscience." When the Ego-atom 
with vanity and self-assertion overrules his council, vetoes their 
legislative resolution, and in defiant mood acts in contravention 
thereto, then he is lashed by his parliament in hot debate and 
around him a mob shouts excoriating protests. All of this is 
kept up in proportion to the gravity of the offense, and is called 
" remorse." From this retributory ordeal, if the protests are 
long continued, there is but one escape, — either abdication or 
flight; i. 6., insanity or death. 

Happy the man who convokes his council often and listens 
to its debates; Man, convene thy Soul and give heed. 

Sometimes the council is so neglected that it resigns in dis- 
gust, sometimes affronted it quits, sometimes it is dispersed and 



40 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITHURIEL. 

the Ego-atom acts selfishly and alone. The man is then said 
to have no soul. He becomes vicious, a foe to decency and a 
curse to his race. Sometimes he determines to reorganize his 
council and change his manner of administration; this is called 
iC conversion." This council and these powers, paramount and 
subordinate ; these bodies, functions and tribunals, these efforts 
and these actions — all combined, are called, in one comprehen- 
sive term, "The Mind." In our language we have no word to 
designate the distinction between the process and the product, 
and so we call both "Mind." 

Sec. 36. — The Nerves. Man is built something like a whisk- 
broom : the straws all run up into the top. From the brain 
down and through every part of the body run highways, through 
and over which, as over Roman roads, couriers and armies may 
be sent. From the metropolis in the brain, messengers can be 
sent to any portion of the body, inside or out. The outside is 
a net- work of minute and innumerable pores; yet, at every 
opening there are sentinels to forbid the entrance of objection- 
able visitors, and carry an immediate notice to headquarters. 
These messengers are extremely rapid and numerous, and know 
where to go to deliver their messages. Some deliver them to one 
staff officer and some to another. The staff officers condense 
the news and, if important, advise the Ego-atom. These nerves 
are cylindrical, in pairs alongside of each other, so as to allow 
travel in opposite directions. In other words, the whole sys- 
tem is double-tracked. These cylinders are so small that they 
are filled with vacuum. That is, they are so small that the cor- 
puscles of the air or water cannot get into them, any more than 
a cannon-ball could go into a flute. These highways, being 
kept free from intrusion and impediments, afford a line of travel 



THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITHURIEL. 41 

in vacuo that is speedful. These nerve-lines have fine terminal 
facilities, side-tracks, switches and spurs, at all necessary places* 
They also have complicated connections at junction points* 
called ganglions, where messengers can go around a piece of 
road that is out of order. Various portions of the lines are con- 
stantly suffering damage, and gangs of " trouble-men " are con- 
stantly repairing at points where trouble exists. Restorations 
are constantly being made by building through or. around an 
obstacle. Division superintendents are at the ganglions, and 
the general managers and the chiefs of the operating depart- 
ments are at headquarters in the brain. 

Sec. 37. — Language. The inhabitants of China speak one 
language, those of Africa another, those of America still another ; 
but the Coolie and the Negro can be brought forcibly or other- 
wise to America and be immediately put at profitable employ- 
ment. They may not be able to speak the language of America, 
but soon they pick up enough w^ords, sign language and informa- 
tion to enable them to do their work well and understand their 
duties. So with man and his constituent atoms. As each man 
is an empire, so also in each empire there is a different dialect. 
Each immigrant is shorn of much power by being unable to speak 
the language on his arrival. Food is made up of immigrants. 
Some pick up the language quicker than others. Interpreters 
are plent3 r — every immigrant in this great cosmopolitan empire 
finds some one with whom he can communicate. In youth, the 
great formative period of the man-empire, the problem is to fix 
and settle the language, laws and social system of the empire. 
This is accomplished at or about "maturity," and before that 
time great numbers fail, because they are unable to perfect a 
working organization. 



42 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITHURIEL. 

As various atoms have, respectively, various ranges of ex- 
perience, so, therefore, do these atoms range from the dull and 
stupid to the wise and clever. But there can be no combinations 
between them unless they have some method of communication. 
If all the general methods of signs, words and acts may in the 
aggregate be defined as "talk," then we may say that all associ- 
ating of atoms is brought about by "talk." Unless atoms talk 
there could be no crystals, no plants, no animals. Without talk 
there could be no functional activity in any form of life. A tree 
could not grow, a snowflake could not form, unless some one 
atom could tell some other atom where to go and what to do. 
Unless the atoms which form a tree could act together with a 
common intent to carry out a common purpose, those atoms 
would be as incapable as a pile of sand. The more perfect the 
internal language the more preeminent the organization. Ora- 
tory has its true effect whether within or without the crystal, 
within or without the man. 

Sec. 38. — Sensation. We see those things only which we 
know we see ; we hear those things only which we know we hear. 
Sensation applies to the things of which, and only to the things 
of which, we take cognizance. In the atom-empire of the man, as 
in the greater empire of men, information from the outside is 
carried to governmental headquarters by messengers and is 
there classified and considered. A brass-band is playing in the 
park, and we far off are listening. The process of comprehen- 
sion is complicated; the vibrations of the air reach our ears; 
the fact of these commotions, by instantaneous and consecutive 
messengers, are carried to the headquarters of the brain, and 
there receive attention from the aides-de-camp and general staff. 
The result is reported to the Ego-atom. The sensations of touch 



THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITHURIEL. 43 

and smell, of hearing and seeing, are all communicated and regis- 
tered alike. As, in a temporal empire of the world, communi- 
cations from the outside come in the form of reports and advices, 
so in the atom-empire do they come. But the organization of 
the atom-empire is much the more perfect. There is a vast 
difference between men — that is, between the atom-empires 
we call man — between one and another, as to the ease and accu- 
racy with which each receives and comprehends sensations. 

No two men are similarly organized. No two can act, or 
be, the same. As no two states have the same laws; as no two 
states have the same internal political organization, so no two 
men can have the same faculties or capability. Hence sen- 
sations, of different men, differ in volume and effect. But the 
machinery, the mechanism of transfer, must necessarily be about 
the same. Sensations are conveyed over the highways of the 
nerves by messengers vast in number, rapid in movement and 
continuous in service. The waste is enormous; hence we tire 
in traveling and seeing sights, and need time (sleep) in which to 
reorganize. The man at headquarters, the Ego-atom, tireless 
and alert, receives and considers the official reports of his sub- 
ordinates, and makes up his mind as to the outside facts. Then 
and only until then has he experienced " sensation." 

Sec. 39. — Ideas. While traveling a street a circumstance 
perhaps occurs which fills our mind with pleasant and amusing 
thoughts. From us these thoughts stream out in little cloud- 
like masses on the air. They are substance, and represent the 
destruction of tissue; small indeed in volume but representing 
millions of atoms. Another person comes along, and breathing 
in these atoms is acted on by them. Thought is infectious, and 
those who are not immune are smitten by it. The rose exhales 



44 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF I TH URIEL. 

a fragrance; we breathe it in with exquisite surprise. Much 
more would we be pleased could w T e but understand the rose's 
language. Men exhale thoughts, as roses do perfume. Each 
is a dissipation of substance. The substance is the messenger 
of the thought; without the substance there could be no com- 
munication of thought; without the thought the substance 
would be motionless and sterile. And so it is that ideas are 
practically substance. They are sublimated substance; they 
arise and are thrown off as the product of the interaction of atom 
on atom brought together by combination, selection, affinity, 
and family ties. A gallon of water or a bushel of coal cannot, 
as- such, evolve an idea; they must join some organization. 
And all organizations have ideas, using the word as synonymous 
with thought. And all through the air are floating thoughts, 
fancies and ideas, readable, conceivable, comprehensible to those 
alone who understand the languages of the substances which 
convey them. And, as in wireless telegraphy, the receiver who 
takes the message must be attuned to take it ; the listener must 
know the code. So it is that ideas originate; they sweep com- 
munities with resistless force, and disappear we know not why 
or whither. They lie dormant perhaps for ages, and rise again 
to please or vex mankind. Men and communities catch ideas 
in manner not unlike the way in which they catch a plague. 
Men, animals, trees, crystals are evolving thought, — everything 
is thinking; much of it we take in, but unfortunately we as- 
similate or understand but little. 

Sec. 40. — Health. There is due from a general to his army 
the highest purpose and the most unwearied attention. He 
can inspire the army with confidence and hope; can bring it 
up to an increasing efficiency, or can ruin it by neglect and bad 



THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITH URIEL. 45 

example. It is so with the Ego-atom : he must be active, honest 
and firm with himself; he must enforce discipline and good 
order; he must always maintain cordial relations w r ith his soul. 
By unremitting cleanliness he must free himself from the scamps, 
thieves and camp-followers which gather and hang constantly 
around his army. He must study his men and find out what 
they can do, and what they like ; what is harmful and what is 
best. He must not strain their friendship by dissipation and 
excess; or their loyalty by overwork or neglect. Few are the 
secrets that the Ego-atom can keep from his soul or his soldiers. 
If an insurrection arises he must in positive language command 
it to stop; if danger from without is threatened he must give 
timely warning. A man may walk unharmed through contagion 
if he is all on guard. An Ego-atom may march his army un- 
scathed through the pestilence that rages at noonday, provided 
he has in advance informed his troops and put them on the alert . 
Shoulder to shoulder they will resist an invader and repulse an 
attack. But there must not be disloyalty in the ranks or muti- 
neers at headquarters to help the foe. That is, the Ego-atom 
must not be at variance with his army or his soul. Health is a 
matter of mind and government. When health is lost the Ego- 
atom can, with the help of the soul, do much to restore it. When 
driven to necessity the dangerful expedient of outside help 
(medicine) may be employed. In our Civil War, at time of 
greatest danger we freed and armed the blacks, — that was medi- 
cine. It is best, however, to let the troops fight out their own 
battles, enforce their own discipline, and win their own victories ; 
they thereby learn the art of war, the habit of self-government, 
and acquire the confidence of success. 

Sec. 41. — Disease. During every day that an army marches 



46 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF IT H URIEL. 

there are a number of mischievous happenings ; there are a cer- 
tain number of fights among the men, a certain number of deser- 
tions and deaths, some of the wagons collapse, a piece of artillery 
gets a broken axle, some soldiers are promoted, some officers re- 
duced, somebody gets mutinous, some are sent to the hospital. 
So, every day, with man : he is a vast army engaged in a con- 
stant march and almost continuous battle. Abhorrent forces 
are always at work; spies, enemies and insurgents are always 
within the lines; ambitious mutineers, clever malcontents and 
insidious foes are ever present. Every man carries at all times 
within himself the seeds of every disease. The policemen of the 
blood are on constant duty to overcome and expel these dan- 
gerous and intriguing adversaries. The army must go into 
camp (sleep) from time to time for no other purpose than to re- 
organize and re-form. Hence overwork leaves man a prey to 
many diseases. Rest and mental determination will cure most 
of them. The mind by its own inherent processes sets the forces 
at work that will overcome most ailments. Sometimes the as- 
saults of enemies within are so vigorous that instead of fighting 
a long, doubtful and exhausting contest it is better to call to our 
aid and employ, outside assistance. By employing janizaries 
who will go directly to the spot and help the weary legions who 
are fighting, we sometimes win a speedy victory. But these 
janizaries are dangerous, sometimes they (the medicines) will 
not fight (act), sometimes they plunder their allies and must be 
overpowered and expelled. When mutineers arise and depose 
the general, and discord prevails and the government is over- 
thrown, then a condition arises that in men is called " insanity." 
Pain is simply grief that arises from bad news which is brought 
by the messengers from the invaded or insurrectionary districts, 



THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITH URIEL. 47 

It can be stopped only by preventing the travel of the messen- 
gers on the road, — by obstructing the nerves and decreasing the 
information on which the grief is based. This remedy is called 
anesthetic! Of death as the result of disease we will speak here- 
inafter (Sec. 45). 

Sec. 42. — Action. We watch a baseball player and see him 
throwing, catching, and striking ; we are amazed at the intelli- 
gent rapidity with which he acts ; let us analyze his movements. 
From the brain, the center of thought and direction, his hands 
are distant about two feet and a half, by the nearest traveled 
route. Every movement consists of five factors. First, the 
brain must mature thoughts for the carrying out of the certain 
combined act and purpose. Second, the brain must send mes- 
sengers to the various members of the complex organization, 
communicating to each the special thought, when matured, and 
commanding its execution. Third, the recipient of the message 
must understand the language in which the message is couched, 
and comprehend its purpose and scope. Fourth, the recipient 
must proceed to carry out the mandate of the message with such 
speed as is required. Fifth, all must message back, as rapidly 
as possible, their various acts done in compliance with the mes- 
sages. These return messages may also be corroborated from 
the eye and ear. By constant practice all of these processes be- 
come more complete; the thought becomes more definite and 
prompt; the messengers become acquainted with their routes; 
they acquire a better use of the imperial vernacular; they know 
more certainly where the local headquarters are situated ; they 
become acquainted with their superior officers and convey the 
verbal messages more certainly ; by experience the recipients of 
the messages interpret them, and construe them, more accurately ; 



48 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITHURIEL. 

and report back with more promptness and efficiency. After a 
while the subordinate headquarters know so well what is expected 
that they can go ahead and act almost automatically. All of 
this thought, message, interpretation, action and report must be 
originated, sent and acted on by intelligent, fraternal, talking, 
thinking, understanding atoms. There is in this as in war a 
great waste of atoms. All action of the human body is the 
counterpart of war. All action is wasteful and brings about 
hunger, that is, a demand for recruits and reinforcement. Hu- 
man existence is continual exertion within, and war without, 
requiring at all times force and generalship. 

Sec. 43. — Messengers. The laws of the United States may 
be found in a hundred places in England ; the laws of England 
may be found around the world. And so it is with thoughts, 
or rather with the messengers of thought, — they are found out- 
side of the place of their birth and outside of the jurisdiction of 
the thinker. And this brings up to us the answer of the ques- 
tion, " Where do ideas come from?" If thought is not a sub- 
stance, — if separated from its messenger service it is a mere ab- 
straction, then we must deal with the messenger. Thus the 
messenger embodies the thought, and we may safely treat the 
messenger as the thought ; and, as the messenger is a substance, 
we may, for the purpose of handling the thought, treat it as a 
substance. 

Where, therefore, dp ideas come from? We may say in 
reply: They are messengers, they are everywhere; we breathe 
them in, we gather them in. Like birds of passage, or like 
errant zephyrs, they singly, or in multitudes, forever come and 
go. Thoughts are constantly originated and the messengers 
are constantly dispatched; they are pushed, they are speeded. 



THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITHURIEL. 49 

Some go where they are sent, some arrive at their destination, 
others wander, ramble, straggle, desert. They come to us from 
planet and star. They interchange from soul to soul. They 
may be sent telepathically . We give them as a rabble little heed ; 
we do not understand their languages, we cannot interpret the 
purport of their messages, except that now and then one of them 
is couched in a dialect which we dimly comprehend. Never- 
theless there are those who seem gifted with strange wisdom 
and perception and who catch the hidden meaning of messages, 
the existence of which to others is unknown. These men are 
geniuses. Yet all of us have the faculty to some extent of in- 
terpreting some of these messages ; hence often there are simul- 
taneous inventions, and thoughts, in places far removed ; and 
messages between distant kindred and separated souls. 

Sec. 44. — Memory. Memory is a phenomenon of combina- 
tion; it pertains but very little to the individual atom. Mem- 
ory is the retention of sensations which have been experienced; 
that is to say, a retention of the media by which facts have been 
communicated. A state government has a bureau- of records 
where are deposited the archives of the state; these archives 
compose the official history of the state. The power to go into 
these archives and find at will what is wanted would constitute 
memory on the part of the state. If the records were so broken, 
scattered or confused that sought-for documents could not be 
found, then official memory would be gone. The messages 
which to the Ego-atom come from ear and eye and touch are, 
like photographs and like phonograph records, filed away when 
they have been considered. It is a wonderful process, not easily 
explainable, how all these various forms of message and report 
are reduced to a common form by the able and experienced staff 



50 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITHURIEL. 

at headquarters; prepared, assorted, arranged and preserved. 
Each living man has a bureau of records in which the archives 
of his life are stored. The finest organization that can be 
dreamed of is man. There is nothing around him to compare 
in method, scope or fine adjustment, with what is found within. 
But all records are not kept alike, and, as they are all perishable, 
most of them are lost. National records are lost by war, pesti- 
lence, and time ; personal records are lost by disease, bad habits, 
and dissolution. The utility of all records depends upon the 
ability to find immediately what is wanted. Within the man 
the perfection of the organization is of the most importance. 
Some men can call up instantly and accurately all important 
facts of which they have been aware, while others grope labori- 
ously through fragments and disorder. It may be likened to a 
library, properly or improperly classified and managed by a good 
or bad librarian. At last comes the invasion of disease and the 
Alexandrine library is no more. Memory pertains to the atom 
but in smallest degree. It is principally the phenomenon of 
combination. Memory as such exists only in contemplation; 
like thought, it is an abstraction, but memories, that is to say, 
the definite remembrances of the things remembered, they are 
substances. 

Sec. 45. — Death. As any other empire perishes, so perishes 
the atomic empire of the man. When the Huns and Vandals 
of disease invade it, or cataclysms or internal disorders over- 
whelm it, it ceases to exist, as any other empire ceases. When 
the end of order and dominion has come, the Ego-atom sum- 
mons his staff, his aides-de-camp, his counsel and his courts, 
his guards and sentinels, the officers of his armies, and those en- 
trusted with participation in government ; then, fleeing from 



THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITHURIEL. 51 

the distracted empire, it and its records are consigned to fate. 
Like Hannibal with his staff they seek a foreign land and another 
opportunity. That is to say, the Ego-atom and his soul go 
forth to do again and perhaps in a better way what they have 
done before. If this now roving atom, with its soul, were visible, 
it would have the seeming of a sparkling mist of the exact out- 
lines of the former body which it had vacated, each atom in its 
accustomed place of duty, nothing lacking in detail of outline 
or form ; each sentinel at his post, every corporal with his guard. 
All of this million-atomed outline is movable and flexible; it 
can contract and condense itself into a single spark of most in- 
finitesimal weight. A weight subject to its will. It can then 
reassume its former shape, because each atom knows its place 
and where and how to go. The balance of the human body, the 
rank and file, that which gives it weight, falls a prey to anarchy ; 
thousands of leaders arise, enlist recruits and aspire to dominance ; 
those as worms fight and prey upon each other until at last a 
general flight begins. The fugitives seeking new situations start 
life anew, elsewhere, -with the lessons they have learned. All of 
the official records of the empire are left to destruction; it is 
well they are. Of what use are they except to embarrass the 
future ? 

Sec. 46. — Sleep. Did you ever see a legislative body con- 
duct itself when its speaker had vacated the chair? The jokes, the 
stories, the mock proceedings, the revelry? It illustrates sleep. 
The Ego-atom is gone, and those who are present tell strange 
stories of what has been, or might be. Among the membership 
at headquarters are actors and mimics, historians and novelists, 
warriors and cowards. Some of them tell blood-curdling tales 
of the past ; some recount fictitious stories of the present ; and 



52 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITHURIEL. 

some make impossible prophecies of the future. These are un- 
official and are not recorded ; sometimes the Ego-atom suddenly 
returns, and without taking the chair, listens briefly to what 
transpires. Some of it may fix his attention. Some of it as 
he takes the chair he may cause to be put on record, and pre- 
served. Sometimes messages come to the adjourned house and 
are delivered, when, if they came during the session, they would 
not have been received, or would have been neglected. When 
the Ego-atom is not at headquarters he is visiting the provinces 
of his empire. He is inspecting his army, looking after supplies, 
and defenses. He is stationing his sentinels and visiting the 
outposts. He is instructing his subordinates and superintend- 
ing repairs. There is very much for him to do. There are spies 
and enemies without and within. If he should stay at head- 
quarters, and not look after the hourly needs of his empire, it 
would go to confusion and ruin in a few days. He is the man 
who must attend to it ; it is his empire, and he alone must do 
the work and keep down insubordination and the constant drift 
toward anarchy and disorder. When he is absent the carnival 
at headquarters begins ; we call it dreaming. 

Sec. 47. — Ghosts. When the Ego-atom leaves the body, 
attended by its soul, the whole, if it could be seen, would re- 
semble in some respect what is called a "ghost," and we will call 
it such. No sane man ever saw one. Insane persons occasion- 
ally see them. We have shown in Sec. 45 how the soul-atom 
with its entourage leaves the body after death ; how it can as- 
sume the shape of the departed, or concentrate itself into a point. 
The ghost cannot talk, because it has not the machinery to put 
the air in motion, but it can see. It may immediately, upon its 
release, begin to hunt a new home, to acquire a new command 



THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF I TH URIEL. 53 

and seek again the delights of leadership and rule. It may often- 
times do much better, as we shall see. If of a low character it 
most generally tries to enter some empire already formed, tries 
to overthrow its ruler and take the short course of a bandit to- 
ward acquiring sovereignty. It generally fails. AVe see this 
after the battlefield and plague have unhoused many hapless 
souls. In their eagerness and haste some of them — the worst of 
them — make attacks right and left; we say, "It is the deadly 
typhus/ 7 Finally, worn out and torn to pieces by their rivals 
and opponents, and shorn of their adherents and staff, they take 
humbler places, and seek to rise by slower and more gracious 
methods. They must be born again. 

But the ghost of fiction and romance — he does not exist ; he 
does not walk by the moonlight, he does not talk, revealing 
dark and damning secrets; he has no secrets. Every one is 
armed against a ghost. Each soul is within a citadel with an 
army to repel an invader; and having almost every advantage 
of numbers and situation, can easily win. But if the invaded 
territory is governed by a vicious chief, corrupt in thought and 
habit, with no discipline or ideals, the army of defense will be 
undisciplined, the officers will partake of the character of the 
chief, and the battle will be, instead of an easy victory, the ruin 
and downfall of both. There are "ghosts," but not the ghosts 
of fable, and are unseen of men; there are also "spirits" — mes- 
sengers from the bright and distant stars — these are entirely 
different; they are occasionally seen of men; we will speak of 
them elsewhere. 

Sec. 48. — Angels. The Ego-atom, and its entourage which 
we call the "soul," finally disencumbered from the mass of crude 
material called "body," goes on with its immortal history and 



54 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITHURIEL. 

development; as it has ever done. Upon distant stars in dis- 
tant constellations higher and higher grades of existence are at- 
tained; and from time to time messengers are sent from there 
to here, just as England sends her ships to the distant islands of 
the sea. It is ; as we shall hereinafter observe, one vast domain 
over which one atom ; which has achieved supremacy, is ruling. 
So long as we hereafter, in distant constellations, are in sub- 
ordinate places, so long are we liable to be sent on errands of 
duty and concern to the island spheres, the earth among the num- 
ber, which comprise the imperial domain. 

These messengers have from time to time been seen of men. 
They were seen by Socrates, and Christ, and Saint Cecilia, and 
by Joan of Arc. They have been seen by thousands in the past ; 
they have been seen by the living. They will be seen oftener and 
oftener in the future. 

Sec. 49. — Future Memory. As said before, — memory is a 
phenomenon of combination. How much of memory remains to 
man — to the Ego-atom of man — after dissolution? Obviously 
but very little. The records are gone; there remains not much 
except the residuum of experience. Why should w r e in our up- 
ward flight be burdened with the weight of old memories. All 
lives are disappointments, but none of them are failures. I do 
not remember when I was a monad; I do not remember my 
sufferings as a trilobite; nor my death at Pharsalia. What my 
existence was before my present form I do not care to investi- 
gate. It was all disappointment, and I am glad that it has been 
forgotten. And the present arrangement is the proper one: 
how can there be progress upward if we are encumbered with a 
past? We must fly light if we would fly far. Our course is up- 
ward — rapidly upward— and as we do not now care to remember 



THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF I TH URIEL. 55 

when we were mollusks at the bottom of an ocean, so the time 
will come when we will not care to remember when we were un- 
happy beings at the bottom of an atmosphere. 

It has been said that death with loss of memory. is extinction; 
and that another life without memory of the present is not im- 
mortality. In a barren sense that is true; but when the soul- 
atom knows that it is immortal, and that, it will live on and ever 
on, that one fact is all which, for the present, it need know or re- 
member. The destruction of the archives of memory is no loss 
to the. power and mental strength of the Ego-atom. Although 
an athlete after long and continuous exercise, by which he ac- 
quired great strength, should forget all the circumstances and 
processes by which it was acquired, yet he would hold it unim- 
paired. So the soul, although it might forget the facts and ex- 
periences by which great mental power and aptitude were ac- 
quired, would still retain its acquirements. It would lose its 
ladder but would keep its rise. We may not remember our 
mother, but we have had a million mothers. Which one shall 
we idolize, — only the last? 

Sec. 50. — The Scheme of Probabilities. In order that man 
may advance and hold his ground by force of his own power and 
experience, he must have no personal help from above. He may 
get help from above, but it is general to the race or species ; he 
gets, and should get, no individual help. He must work his 
way up the mountain, step by step. There is no rope let down 
to. draw him up; there is no push from below, — he must do all 
the work himself. But, each one must have a fair chance; each 
one must have an equal opportunity. If individual help came 
from above it would be selective, partial and unfair, therefore 
the fight below is on the merits ; each one for himself. What 



56 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITH URIEL. 

then happens? Energy and zeal must be reinforced by good- 
fortune. A thousand spores float in the air, only six catch. A 
thousand seeds fall to the ground ; only a few put forth. Of a 
million eggs spawned in the river ; but a few survive. A thousand 
ambitious men in a' state wish to go as delegates at large to a 
presidential convention only four are chosen. In the matter 
of reproduction the existence of sex is taken advantage of as an 
agency in bringing about fair results. The female may be com- 
pared to a garden, and the male to the gardener who selects what 
is to be planted. The ambitious atoms are selected by the 
male; he sends them forth to take their chances. The fittest 
are selected, the luckiest survive. The female makes no se- 
lection, but she furnished the opportunities for those selected. 
She takes care of the luckiest. Each one has his chance; every 
one an opportunity. The atoms throw their own dice and the 
parents take care of the winner. This is "The scheme of proba- 
bilities/ ' which is not only necessary but comes about naturally. 
It is the only fair one. If there is only one promotion to a 
thousand candidates, let them settle it among themselves. Let 
those defeated try again. 

Sec. 51. — Sex. Sex indicates a habit of thought. The idea 
of sex embraces two principles, progress and conservatism. 
These are antithetical, are found in all nations, found in all na- 
ture. In an atom-nation, as in a world-nation, there are found 
two parties. They may be called Democrat or Republican, 
Whig or Tory, but they are elementally the same, — they are 
male and female. In numerical strength they are about even. 
Sex is a sort of division of labor both mental and physical. One 
pushes ahead and brings in, the other is cautious, protective, 
and conservative. They are both necessary to "The Scheme of 



THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITHURIEL. 57 

Probabilities" of which we have spoken (Sec. 50). Therefore 
sex is a habit of thought; and, while it does not inhere as a 
quality in the individual atom, it early characterizes the com- 
bination into which the atom enters. That is to say — atoms 
are not male and female in the beginning as primordial atoms, 
but by experience, as they combine and re-combine, as they 
become Ego-atoms in various associations and undergo various 
trials and tests, they, by virtue of what has happened, take on 
the mental configuration of sex. They become endowed with 
such habit of thought as stamps them as belonging to one sex 
or the other. Thus mentally fashioned they go on from era to 
era, carrying with them their experiences and modes of thought 
into a thousand lives as they struggle up and up to higher and 
nobler planes. This difference of thought marks out two classes 
of atomic combination. That it is availed of in propagation 
and increase is wholly disconnected and secondary. And so it is 
that there is sex in crystals, in plants, in snowflakes, in every 
living, breathing thing. And so it is that one sex loves the other, 
and enjoys the society of the other, for the bold loves the gentle 
and the prudent ; and the conservative loves the strenuous and 
the brave. When the two unite they combine all that is. They 
are each the hemisphere of some globe, greater or less in size. 

Sec. 52. — Persistency of Sex. Wifehood and maternity do 
not end with, earth. The duality of sex continues upward and 
onward forever. If it should cease, advancement would cease. 
We could not reef up and secure progress as it was being slowly 
and painfully acquired, and we could not perpetuate it, unless 
the classification of sex were continued. It would be useless to 
develop man from the crystal, or the plant, if, upon disintegra- 
tion, he must revert to the beginning. But if, when on arrival 



58 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITHURIEL. 

to the upper class, he can perpetuate the class, then, upon it as 
a foundation, a higher class may be developed. And so it is, 
class upon class is builded, to a height and extent of which mind 
can but dimly conceive. And this does not end with man, and 
is not confined to earthly things, but, growing in importance, it 
becomes the rule of higher life, universe without end. And so 
it is that we may justly pray to "our father and mother who are 
in heaven." And so it is that class after class of superior be- 
ings, rising ever so high, by the power of reproduction, grasp and 
retain the progress and the benedictions of the past. There are 
those who are born as minor gods and goddesses, and they have 
those above them to whom they may look with adoration and 
hope. And to all this condition of things we men and women 
of the world may turn our thoughts, with ambitious longings 
for achievement, knowing that glorious futures are before us, 
and that the long and rocky road which we have already trav- 
eled is the most wearisome portion of the journey. 

Hence it is that we have the million mothers as we rise and 
rise. May have the same beloved spouse, or mother, world 
after world. The father may have the same sons; ; and the 
family, although it does not know it, may pull itself together 
like magnets in the universe. And at some distant time by 
message through the wireless ether may utter each to each, 
/'Where have you been so long?" 

Sec. 53. — Sex- Atoms. The idea of sex comes to man through 
so many ages of experience that he feels familiar to it. He would 
not care to exchange his sex. All persons are satisfied with their 
sex, no matter how dissatisfied with their individual lots. The 
sex of any certain, particular human being is the sex of the Ego- 
atom of such being. Of the billion of atoms associated with 



THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITHURIEL. 59 

that Ego-atom and forming that human being, only a majority 
need be of the same sex. For instance, a man may be 51 per 
cent male and 49 per cent female. Were he all male atoms he 
would be unbalanced. If his majority were female atoms he 
would become effeminate. Majorities change in atom-nations 
as in others. By this change of majorities, brought about by 
accident or force, bold men become pusillanimous, cowards be- 
come bold, and women become daring. A man is what his atoms 
make him. It is not altogether beyond his power to select his 
atoms. The best formula for man or woman is a good working 
majority of atoms of the proper sex. A majority that can be 
relied upon at all times to sustain the administration. The Ego- 
atom must have those of his own way of thinking to depend on, 
and they are those from whom the legislatures of the brain are 
chosen. And so from the crystal and the seaweed, hand in 
hand, the sexes come up together, associated in the co-educa- 
tional experiences of the universe. There are many grades 
higher up than man, and hand in hand the sexes will together 
go, and there will be children born in the grades above us whose 
dower and birthright will be too splendid for us as yet to con- 
sider or conceive. There we, who are most fortunate, will 
soonest arrive; and others through pain and anguish and ex- 
perience of woe will, as laggards, ultimately arrive. But they 
will arrive able, ambitious, and equipped for what there is to 
come. 

Sec. 54. — Matter and Thought. We are led by the fore- 
going up to this : 

The original, primordial atom had consciousness and a ca- 
pacity to think. To possess both loves and hates it must have 
had the power of thinking. If atoms have the power to com- 



60 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITH URIEL. 

bine ; and to adhere to the combination, they must have the 
faculty of imagining, of determining, of believing. These mental 
powers become by combination stronger and stronger with ex- 
perience and practice ; and so it is that atoms think, and when 
combined become parts of thoughts. In this one sense the 
atom is a substance, and in another it is a portion of a thought. 
As the atom and the thought cannot be disassociated, one is the 
practical synonym of the other. Therefore electricity is thought, 
and light is thought, and every organized thing is thought. A 
rock, a tree, a w T orld, a universe is a thought. And in the same 
sense all substance is thought and all thought is substance. 

While it may not be true that "Flowers are the thoughts 
of angels whereby they write on hill and dale mysterious truths/' 
nevertheless flowers are thoughts ; and every organized substance 
has thought as its organic basis. There can be no organization 
without thought, and the substance embodies the thought. 
Some thoughts are good and some are bad. Nevertheless, there 
may be atoms that as yet are without experience, who have 
a feebly developed consciousness and are as yet practically inert ; 
they cannot form combinations and are hardly yet to be classed, 
except potentially, as thought. They are the laggards, but they 
in time, in the great eternity of time, will become proficient. 
God is the greatest of all combinations of substance and thought. 
But He is outside, and by Himself, separate^jrom the great ■ 
volume of substance and thought, and all substance and thought 
is not God, nor is God a combination of the whole. He is 
simply Himself. We will treat of this further in Sec. 72. 

Sec. 55.— Telepathy. Light, as stated, is a substance which 
is molecularly small: electricity is a substance which is smaller; 
thought" is a substance which may be still smaller. We can pro- 



THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITHURIEL. 61 

ject light afar; we can project electricity to places more difficult 
and remote. We may send messages by light signals to great 
distances, if some one is there skilled in receiving them. We 
may send wireless electrical messages to greater distances, if 
some one is there skilled in receiving them. We may send 
thought messages still farther, if some one is there skilled in re- 
ceiving' them. To receive a thought message the recipient must 
be, so to speak, attuned to receive it. The time will come when 
the human family will largely communiciate by silent thought. 
The time will come when human thought mil, so to speak, be- 
come visible. The murderer's thought will warn his intended 
victim, and the mother may talk with her children in distant 
lands. The thought, the substance, will go where it is sent. 
It will bring about communion between the spheres. In realms 
above us this has long been true. 

If, after dissolution, which on earth we call death, a dis- 
embodied soul-atom wishes to see a wife or child or friend who 
has gone before, what may happen? This, perhaps: As the 
power of motion is inherent (Sec. 9) and the powder of direction 
persistent (Sec. 14), then, as soon as both parties wish to meet, 
no matter wnere they may be located, they may approach each 
other with incredible speed. No matter what the distance or 
direction, if they wish to meet, they immediately move toward 
each other and by a mental pull speedily unite. 

In the first case, telepathy, messengers are sent; in the 
second the atom goes itself. But in the higher life telepathy 
is most wondrously developed ; and messages are sent from con- 
stellation to constellation. Many such messages reach the 
earth, but few of all have the intelligence or capacity to appre- 
hend and understand them, 



62 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITHURIEL. 

Sec. 56. — The Telepathic Gift. As thought is a substance, 
and as in man its movement and control reside in the Ego- 
atom, it is possible for one person to throw a thought into an- 
other. This can be done silently, and even secretly, as well as 
openly. If done silently and secretly, the receiver, as in wireless 
telegraphy, must be in tune and must be present to take the 
message ; he must be willing to receive it; the sounding-board 
and the operator must both be present. If the receiver himself 
is awake, then the operator is present, and it is only further then 
needed that the machine should be in tune. Both rarely happen. 
The third requisite, coincident, is that the message be sent 
when both of said conditions exist. Spoken words uttered at 
the right time to persons in the right condition, as we all well 
know, are very powerful. Silent messages may be made equally 
powerful. 

There are some persons who are naturally receptive; who 
are in tune during frequent periods and who can receive thoughts 
and ideas from a distance and from silent potential thinkers. 
The former persons are by nature, or by training, telepathic; 
and can receive thought impressions from anywhere ; from any 
distant city, from any distant world, from any distant constella- 
tion. The only question with the thought, as with a cannon, 
is, "How far will it carry; will it carry far enough to reach the 
mark?" 

As thought is a substance, the act of talking is the sending 
of a message from one person to another, the sending of a mes- 
sage from one atom-nation to another; it is the sending of a 
special embassy from one empire to another. Thus it is that 
dying children sometimes, from a distance, announce their 
deaths to mothers; thus it is that in silence, at times, minds 



THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF IT H URIEL. 63 

are read; thus it is that we get ideas we know not from where; 
thus it is that at times we feel a sunshine which we cannot see. 
Most of us are too coarse. Most of us have recruited our atom- 
nations from too low a race; most of us are too rudely organized; 
most of us do not live the lives which will attract the best volun- 
teers to our service. Hence the Telepathic gift is rare, but by 
proper living it may be acquired, and in the distant future it 
will be born in men like hearing. The thoughts and minds of all 
people at some future time may be like an open book, to be read 
by those who will. ' 

Sec. 57. — Emotions. In the same manner that thought is a 
substance, even so are emotions substances. Even as grasses, 
in almost incredible variations, abound, so do emotions. As in- 
sects differ, even so do emotions. Revenge is a substance, hate 
is a substance, and so are anger and pride. Each differs from 
each, and, in greater or lesser numbers, they form portions of 
the population of the atom-nation called "Man." Love, Hope 
and Loyalty, these are also substances, and form to a greater or 
less extent the population of the atomic nation. These sub- 
stances are all emigrants; are all migratory. What in the line 
of progress and improvement should the nation do ? Obviously 
the immigration of the best should be encouraged and the ports 
closed against the bad. Again, the best should be befriended 
and the bad exiled. There should be no room for vanity, hatred, 
and revenge ; there should be promotion for fidelity, tenderness, 
and hope. 

It can be accomplished in this way : First, A pure man must 
live on pure food, on domesticated food in lieu of wild food. 
He must live on the best food attainable ; the best is as yet none 
too good. As we emerge from barbarism the quality will grow 



64 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF I TH URIEL. 

better and better. Second, No power, promotion or control 
should be given to the worst element; there must be no out- 
bursts of passion ; the man must not give way to vanity, hatred, 
or revenge. When long ignored and given no hand in public 
affairs, these baser beings go where they can get support, au- 
thority, and recognition. They exile themselves; if not exiled 
they undergo a vital improvement by mere contact with a 
strong majority capable of controlling them and holding them 
in order. 

Hence it is important to feed right and think right; and 
right thinking is as important as right living. Not that it so 
very greatly benefits the individual who does the living and 
thinking, but that his children and his children's children, for all 
time, feel it. A man who feeds on broiled lobsters and cham- 
pagne leaves a frightful heritage to his children. So, the emo- 
tions may be allured as immigrants, favored as friends, or ban- 
ished as foes. 

Sec. 58. — Force. There can be no force except as some sub- 
stance is moved. If a horse runs, of its own accord or by reason 
of a mental impulse, force is developed, just the same as is de- 
veloped by the firing of a cannon ; it is only a difference between 
original and communicated motion. As atoms have original 
motion they can in combination develop aggregated motion. 
As they have intelligence they can originate collective motion. 
Corpuscles have and do acquire habitual motion. The lower 
the intelligence the more iron-clad and inexorable becomes the 
rule of the acquired, habitual motion. There is nothing more 
adamantine than ignorance. 

The forces of light, heat and electricity are original, but are 
go fixed within narrow lines by vast eons of exercise and a low 



THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITH URIEL. 65 

intelligence that their phenomena are relied upon as " con- 
stants." Just as we know that roses will bloom in June and 
that salmon will leave the deep ocean and, at a certain time, 
swim as far as possible up a fresh- water river; these also are con- 
stants. 

We also have reason to know that electricity is composed 
of various sizes and forms of corpuscles ; so that Electricity may 
be divided into various kinds and families with various habits 
and powers. And so is heat. We have already stated that 
light is a compound of many substances. So from the finest 
variety of electricity to the coarsest variety of heat, there is a 
gamut of self-originating compound force. And each note in 
the ascending scale is represented by a corpuscle different in 
size, texture, habits, purposes, and intelligence. These form a 
great variety of "rays." But we poor mortals are obliged to 
classify them, after a fashion, as if we said, of living things, 
" these are beasts, these are birds, these are fishes." The mo- 
tions of each of them, or of either of them, constitute a " force," 
but it is not a " blind force," — there is no such thing as "blind 
force" ; all force has intelligence behind it, weak or stolid though 
it be. 

Sec. 59. — Light. Light is a compound substance. It is 
composed of corpuscles. From the sun it comes to us in the 
nature of a bombardment. All shapes and sizes are represented. 
Hydrogen, iron, uranium, all come as light with vast velocity but 
with little momentum. Some of these projectiles are as bird- 
shot compared to others, which range up to the size as of cannon 
balls. Mixed up and mingled together, without order or method, 
they come in a constant stream, big and little, to our earth from 
the sun and stars. When they strike a prism they are sifted and 



66 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY O F I TH URIEL. 

sorted out; this we see in the spectrum and in Fraunhofer's 
lines. Gold, iron and other metals come to us even from the 
most distant stars. These corpuscles are exceedingly small, 
but are true to type and faithful to characteristics. They fill 
our soil with metals which with gregarious instinct gather into 
groups, or, entering into living combinations, are educated into 
higher forms. Every living thing welcomes the advent of these 
immigrants and thrives upon their industry and cooperation. 
They are so small that they penetrate the spacious structure of 
the air and pass through its texture like breezes through the open 
framework of a trellis. Although exceedingly minute, these cor- 
puscles of light by vastness of numbers, and constant arrival, 
slowly build up the volume of the earth. The Earth is an island 
in the ocean of the universe; by its present facilities it gives 
promise of present advantage, and future progress, and has be- 
come an attraction to immigration. Light does not shine 
vaguely out and waste itself meaninglessly in empty space; it 
goes from sun to planet and from star to star. It leaves no 
source without a purpose, and seeks only an established destina- 
tion. Emigration from Liverpool to America, although it may 
comprise all sizes, nationalities and tongues, still has a destina- 
tion and does not go blindly across the Atlantic, contented to 
land on Labrador, the Bermudas, or Brazil. And so it is with 
light. It goes direct to an objective point. It does not ven- 
ture out into nothingness. 

Sec. GO. — Heat. The difficulty in the conception of light 
is that its particles are so wonderfully fine. The corpuscles 
of air and water are gigantic in comparison with it. Its fine- 
ness is such as almost to baffle contemplation, and yet there are 
substances still finer, and others in all grades of coarseness up to 



THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITH URIEL. 67 

visibility. Heat is a substance coarser than light. If a damp 
sponge be placed upon an anvil, and smitten with a sledge, traces 
of moisture may be perceived upon the face of the anvil. If the 
face of the anvil be itself smitten with the sledge we find a trace 
of heat. The heat and moisture both appear pursuant to the 
same common principle — the compression caused by the blow. 
Heat is coarser than light, but flows with it from the sun, the 
same as pulverized granite flows with the water in the Missouri 
river. Heat is everywhere. Water is but a lava flowing 
melted from a rock known as ice. Heat when quiet is a sub- 
stance difficult to detect. It has strange, lethargic habits. 
Like a groundhog, when unearthed it immediately seeks another 
covert. We burn heat into the lime and slack it out again. It is 
nutritious, and we mix it with most of our foods. It is part of 
our living. Everything is filled with it, and abrasion releases it. 
It is latent and dormant,' but may be quickly aroused by us if we 
know how. It exists in granite the same as in wood; some day 
we will stumble upon some substance that being introduced to 
granite will cause its disintegration and the release of its stored- 
up heat. Coming from the sun, great quantities of it are har- 
bored in the air, together with light and other substances. The 
habits of heat are different from those of light. Light, heat, 
electricity and magnetism are each different substances, and al- 
though found together they have entirely different habits, as 
have insects, animals and birds found in the same forest. . Heat 
is coarser, more docile, less ambitious, more languid than the 
others; hence its manners, habits and customs are entirely 
different from the others. It is often found with light and 
electricity, just as horses are often found with sheep and cattle. 

Sec. 61. — Fire. If we should be walking over the prairie at 



68 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITHURIEL. 

noonday, in summer, everything would be quiet and in a state 
of repose; but, as we proceeded through the high grass, from 
time to time we would be startled by the rising droves of prairie- 
chickens, anon by the boisterous whirr of flocks of startled 
quails. We would also see springing up here and there, from the 
weaving grass, meadow-larks, swiftly retreating rabbits, and per- 
haps an occasional wolf. These all have their habits and their 
lairs. When crowded from one they seek another. 

Light and heat are not very intellectual, not very wise, and 
not very gregarious, but the latter is more gregarious than the 
former; much more deliberative and much more combative. 
Corpuscles of heat are as different from those of light as a wolf 
in the forest is different from a whippoorwill. When the shelters 
within which heat and light have ensconced themselves are 
torn down rapidly, and the flight of the corpuscles of light and 
heat toward other asylums becomes visible, it is called "fire." 
When it becomes visible and we say that the fire has consumed 
something, we make an error; the structure within which heat 
and light were concealed has been broken up and made into 
something else, which affords less capacity for concealment; 
nothing has been destroyed: the house has simply been torn 
down and the tenants have moved into another. All condensa- 
tion of substances produces this effect. 

The sun has been shining upon the earth since the latter was 
as large as an apple ; the earth has been slowly built up by ac- 
cretion and has been saturated with heat. Under the operation 
of the faculty of gregariousness the substances of which the 
earth is composed slowly settle to the center denser and denser. 
The more gregarious substances will crowd out the less. Hence, 
heat will continue to be crowded out, and it will escape through 



THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF I TH URIEL. 69 

volcanoes and otherwise. The interior of the earth is not 
molten; quite the contrary. When heat is crowded out slowly 
we see no fire; this is constantly going on, as when wood is 
rotting or iron rusting. 

Sec. 62. — Electricity. I once heard a soldier of the Civil 
War say that on the march to the rear of Vicksburg, "There 
w r ere fleas ; chiggers ; seed-ticks and mosquitoes all working at 
once/ 7 Although these insects are each small, they differ from 
one another as a horse from an ox. The small and microscopic 
forms of life differ from one another as much as those which are 
larger. Electricity is composed of corpuscles smaller than those 
of light, and can go where light cannot, just as light can go where 
electricity cannot. They are as different as the flea and the 
mosquito. Light is scarcely gregarious, electricity is intensely 
so. It goes like a drove of sheep. It wants to go all together. 
It comes to us from the sun and the stars along with light and 
heat. The earth is saturated with it. As the coarser heat is 
crowded out, the finer substance, electricity, crowds in. The 
more gregarious takes the place of the less gregarious; hence 
heat is always flowing out and electricity always flowing in. 
The air as well as the earth is more or less saturated with each. 
The vast difference between them may be easily shown thus: 
Through plate-glass light goes swiftly, heat slowly, and electricity 
not at all ; through plate-copper electricity goes swiftly, heat 
slowly, and light not at all. 

In the formation of the human body vast numbers of these 
corpuscles are needed. They are constantly recruited, edu- 
cated, and discharged. Man, as before stated, is something 
of a university. For duty as messengers and couriers, along the 
nerves, electricity-recruits are always and constantly necessary. 



70 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITHURIEL. 

With light and heat the same. To a greater or less degree it is 
true, as to every crystal, tree or animal, that they are univer- 
sities, and need constantly the service of skilled messengers. 

Sec. 63. — Thinking. Man, an atom -nation, thinks in the 
same manner that any other nation thinks. A national thought, 
as distinguished from an individual thought, is expressed in two 
ways: one, is by a public law duly enacted; the other, is by 
public sentiment, openly asserted and believed to be based on 
law, written or unwritten. Both of these are the product of a 
combined national effort, and whether just or unjust, conceded 
or resisted, are known to all the nation, or, at least, to all who 
care to know. These national thoughts, expressed in positive 
written law or in manifest public sentiment, knowable to all the 
nation, profoundly affect the nation, and everything within the 
nation, — its policy, its internal administration, its existence, and 
its happiness. It is so with the atom-nation of man: his 
thoughts affect the atom-nation. Within the atom-nation these 
thoughts are public thoughts, and within the nation they are 
mighty factors. Thoughts that linger on malice, revenge, greed 
and cruelty bring about maladministration, corrupt govern- 
ment, and produce social discontent. Then the good and capa- 
ble atoms emigrate, and hunt in other lands for better homes. 
The man, like the nation, must hold his people, must give them 
good thoughts (laws), must exercise a firm but kindly sway, 
must make his realm attractive. 

The rules of nations are the same, big or little ; whether an 
atom-nation such as man or an empire of men such as Rome, — 
the rule is the same; greatness results from rectitude, internal 
justice, and administrative propriety. These qualities attract 
genius, talent and capability from abroad and rob other empires 



THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITHURIEL. 71 

of their most potent and most valued forces. Hence it is that 
a man dull, slow and insipid can by proper thinking build him- 
self up. While he cannot by taking thought add a cubit to his 
corporeal stature he can by taking proper thought add vastly to 
his social and intellectual stature. The Ego-atom can so gov- 
ern his kingdom that he can make it ; like the court of Dionysius, 
a place where lovers of science, art and philosophy may wish to 
congregate and dwell. Thus the Ego-atom by attracting to and 
around itself the best there is may constantly improve. 

Sec. 64. — Thought. As stated hereinbefore, the process of 
thinking is analogous in man to the process of legislation in a 
State. A mind and a parliament act the same way. As a State 
cannot pass a law without its being known, so a man cannot 
think a thought without its being known within the jurisdiction 
of the thinker. The moment a man thinks the whole body knows 
it. A man cannot think without he knows he thinks. He can- 
not see unless he knows he sees. Parliament may debate, but 
if it comes to no conclusion then no national thought has been 
expressed, but when one is expressed the nation knows it; its 
promulgation immediately takes place through a messenger ser- 
vice already established and provided. The parliamentary 
process of enacting the law is one effort, the promulgation of the 
law is another. One is the act of a body of legislators, the other 
of a body of messengers. The law itself may be a mere abstrac- 
tion; its promulgation is the work of many, very many. 

In man the whole body thinks, also its parliament, drawn 
from the whole body, thinks. As soon as a thought is generated 
it is messaged. By .these messengers the thought is promul- 
gated. Every thought has its messengers. So, therefore, in 
the atom-empire, a thought, in one sense, is a substance. It is 



72 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF I TH URIEL. 

a substance in this, that it would forever remain mute, invisible 
and unknown unless expressed by substance, — that is, unless 
promulgated by messengers. The atomic messengers of thought 
may be smaller than light and swifter than electricity. If a 
thing has no existence except through the mediumship of sub- 
stance, then, though not a substance, we may safely treat it and 
handle it as a substance, because there is no other way to treat 
or handle it. 

Sec. 65. — Free Will. To what extent in its upward course 
can the Ego-atom control its flight? Have we no free will? 
Do we all move in the direction of least resistance? Is our 
course framed by the net preponderance of force ? Are we gov- 
erned by everything and yet do we govern nothing? These 
questions and a thousand others like them and deducible from 
them are answered " Yes" by many, but by us they must be met 
with a confident and unyielding "No!" 

On the upper Mississippi at Lake Pepin a log raft is launched ; 
its destination New Orleans. Equipped with a steering-oar 
both in front and rear it starts upon its way. Behind it is the 
current of the river as an irresistible force, and the raft must be 
carefully steered to meet the exigencies of the tortuous channel. 
The shores are strewn with many wrecks, and there are but a 
few degrees of the compass which the pilot can control. A little 
to the right or a little to the left is his arc of option; but it is 
his arc of safety. The power which bears him on is a benefit 
and not an evil ; and the arc of option is large enough to permit 
him to reach his destination. 

Life is a question of steerage ; if we let go of the oar-pole 
we will find our lives sooner or later wrecked. Far ahead of every 
soul-atom is the ever-distant goal ; and down the vast river of 



THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 1 TH URIEL. 73 

eternity we may confidently float, knowing that from whatever 
direction impelling winds may blow we have a power behind 
us, and always an arc of steerage, an arc of option, which, though 
very small, if properly made use of will take us where we wish 
to go. And we get there by making intelligent and selective 
use of preponderating forces. 

Sec. 66. — Prayer. Those who are above us have lost the 
recollection of what transpired below, the same as we have lost 
the recollection of our former lives. It is well that it is so. It 
is well that our present courage is not chilled by the recollection 
of a thousand failures. We cannot remember when we were 
rocks and plants, birds and beasts, yet we know now by recent 
inquiry more about them than they know about themselves. 
The dog knows but little of himself, but we know much. So of 
those above us : they do not remember when they lived on earth, 
do not remember us, yet they know more about us than we know 
about ourselves. Do they listen to our prayers? Men and 
women for millenniums have prayed, and have believed, through 
all these years, that from time to time some of their prayers were 
answered. Not all are believed to have been answered, but so 
many have been answered that it is a concurrent belief of- all 
races and all ages that prayers are at times answered. These 
prayers are directed to the sun, the moon, to wooden idols, to 
trees, to men who never existed, to imaginary women, to winds, 
to clouds, to streams, to things which have ceased to be animate 
and to substances which have never been animate. Prayers 
are but wishes, and all wishes are prayers, addressed to whom it 
may concern. Every fervent wish is a substance which hurtling 
through space may in its course, with telepathic force, strike 
some responsive wire. He who is fervent in prayer may get a 



74 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITHURIEL. 

reply consistent with his fervor. The wish is all that is neces- 
sary ; it does not need to be mailed to the proper address. The 
prayers are few that are answered or that should be answered. 
It is useless to pray against the established order of things. It 
is idle to besiege the Supreme Ruler to change general laws. It 
is idle to ask a suspension of the rules. An emperor cannot 
listen to the quarreling of ants. It is our duty to play our several 
parts in the current sequence of events, and not criticise the 
administration. So there are very few things to pray for. We 
will refer to this again. 

Sec. 67. — Answers to Prayer. But as we play our parts 
from day to day there is, as has been shown, a certain freedom 
of will. We have no right to ask that things be done for us to 
the detriment of others. We have no right to ask for wealth, 
conquest, or power. We have no right to ask for help to obtain 
advantage over others, because we do not wish others helped to 
obtain advantages over us. We must achieve what we get; we 
must do it ourselves. This limits our right-of-prayer to very 
tiny boundaries. 

Prayers are answered only when they pertain to our mental 
and spiritual wants and conditions. We may ask for spiritual 
and mental blessings. Those above us who cannot interfere 
with the established order can help us here. Here is where 
prayer has been undoubtedly answered. The records of the 
human race show that here are cases which can be proven. The 
human race is not so blind and dense as to have been wholly de- 
ceived so long as to this. It sees clearer from year to year. 
The crutches that hang up in the churches of Christendom, 
erroneously called the result of miracles, show that spiritual and 
mental help has been given to man in response, from time to 



THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 2TH URIEL. 75 

time, to his fervent mental wishes. Indeed, here is where help 
begins and ends. 

As the mind controls the body, so assistance to the mind 
is assistance to the body. Therefore, when we pray, the prayer 
should be for mental and spiritual help and betterment. We may 
not get it, but it is the only kind we can get ; and if we do get 
it we may be bettered and we may be cured. If the body has 
passed beyond the control of the mind, we may not be cured. 
The only response to our prayers must be into and through our- 
selves. It is something sent to us and into us like an ambassa- 
dor, like a missionary to the heathen: it may do us some good 
and it may not. The miracle is the fact that the ambassador is 
sent, and not what he does w r hen he has come. Water cannot 
be turned into wine; the Supreme Being 'cannot do that, but 
to every soul a messenger may be sent who can give advice and 
assistance in the puzzling details of its administration. 

Sec. 68. — Miracles. There are no miracles; the Supreme 
Being cannot work one; He cannot turn water into wine. An 
emperor is not able to turn a regiment of infantry into a college 
of surgeons. He can disband the regiment and he can create 
a college of surgeons, but not from the same men. Atoms, being 
indestructible, cannot be transformed into anything else. Atoms 
gain their own knowledge and experience; when it is gained 
it cannot be taken away from them. In order to form wine, 
certain atoms must be assembled and organized; they must 
be atoms that have had grape-experience. This experience can- 
not be given to them by the mere direction or will of any out- 
sider. The Supreme Being possesses vast power and wisdom, 
but He is an atom himself; around Him is his vast following, 
ready and willing to do His bidding ; but, He cannot create an 



76 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITHURIEL. 

atom, and He cannot by mere will give it any intrinsic endow- 
ment. Thus He himself has his limitations, and is bound by 
law, the law of existence, which, created by no mind, has en- 
acted itself, and is fundamental, — having been wrought out in 
the struggle to go forward, in which movement the Supreme 
Being, as an atom, together with all other atoms, has partici- 
pated. He rules, reigns and commands by virtue of his wisdom 
and experience; He cannot be deprived of that wisdom and ex- 
perience ; nor can the humblest atom be deprived of its wisdom 
and experience. Hence the law is inflexible as to all, and it 
cannot be disobeyed, even if an atom ever so powerful desired 
to disobey it. It cannot be broken, because it is absolutely in- 
frangible. There may be laws that can be broken or suspended, 
but the one law of atomic existence, — it is steadfast, immuta- 
ble and irrepealable. 

Sec. 69. — Civilization. Civilization may be likened to a 
procession with a Transcendent Man at its head. Near the rear 
of the procession is the crystal, and back of it is the unaffiliated, 
lonesome, wild, solitary atom. Man in his highest estate re- 
quires the support of the highest beneath him. There must be 
civilized, cultivated animals, varied in species, habits and con- 
stituency, below him. Below these animals must be cultivated 
grasses and foods. Below these grasses must be soils prepared 
by tillage and fertilization. Then as an adjunct to the soil there 
must be the climate, without which, in a proper form, civilization 
cannot exist. So it is the duty of man, to himself, that he seek 
the best places and cause many better blades of grass to grow 
where only one grew before. It is his duty to make the blue- 
grass supplant the buffalo-grass: the Jersey cow, the elk; the 
sheep, the coyote. It is his duty to be constantly domesticating 



THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITHU.RIEL. 77 

wild animals, such as are worth it and have the proper tendency. 
It is his duty to exterminate such as lack value and disposition ; 
they are unfortunate offshoots from the main line of progress 
and civilization. The world would be better off if there were no 
hawks, no tigers, no snakes, no alligators, no sharks; and a 
thousand others, — insects, birds, beasts, and reptiles. It is the 
duty of the kind, the humane and the gentle, paradoxical as it 
may seem, to destroy such other forms of life. And so, as we go, 
the fields may be fertilized with phosphates taken from the 
quarry and with the half-educated refuse from the stables ; the 
soil may be asked to produce corn while we kill the weeds ; the 
domestic animals * may be asked to consume the corn and be- 
come the food of man. One product will be and become the 
distillate of the other; and man the highest result and develop- 
ment, so far, on earth. From the foregoing it will be seen that 
all repugnant forces and products must be combatted and 
smitten down. Civilization is the outcome of a fierce and un- 
ending battle; it is waged in self-defense. Hence it is that the 
food of man should have in it as little as possible of the wild, 
and his associations as little as possible of the evil. 

Sec. 70. — Evil. There is always existent some large, mi- 
nority-percentage of evil, not as much as believed, but still 
enough. There are some who think evil, plan evil and do evil. 
There are evil minerals, evil plants, evil animals, and evil men. 
These evil things result largely from ignorance ; often from mal- 
formation and accident. A snake is a malformation. A klepto- 
maniac is a misfortune. Both the snake and the kleptomaniac 
are the product of natural causes, and both are the result of 
ignorance in combination. So, evil may be defined as ignorance ; 
that is, ignorance in combination — ignorance in things com- 



78 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF I TH URIEL. 

bined. It is our duty to prevent such combinations. It is our 
duty to destroy the poison-ivy and the scorpion; and, going 
up higher, to destroy evil insects, birds, reptiles, and animals. 
It is so in the world below man, it is so in the hierarchy above. 
The good is ever pugilistic, prone to combination, and accepting 
the responsibility of battle. Hence the world is constantly 
growing better; ignorance and evil are growing scarcer, and 
virtue more belligerent. The conflict is unequal, the good can 
greatly combine; the evil can combine but slightly. The pred- 
atory make war upon the predatory, and coherence between 
them is weak and feeble. Hence evil is always fighting a losing 
battle. The time must come when it will be exterminated and 
wholly disappear. Meanwhile to the front the close and closer 
compacted battalions of goodness will march; with its ever- 
increasing armies its leaders will grow in rank and experience; 
there can be but one outcome, — the sovereignty of the good, 
and the extermination of the bad. 

Sec. 71. — Devil. There is a personal Gop, but there is not 
a personal Devil, in the sense generally expressed. There is 
much of evil in existence ; there are many things that are bad, 
but there is no one great representative personality who is the 
champion of evil, disorder and misrule, and who goes about 
" seeking whom he may devour." God cannot prevent igno- 
rance nor exterminate the result of it, hence Evil must continue 
to exist until the cause is removed by education, experience, and 
evolution. But the Supreme Being can destroy its combination; 
can scatter its organization and can overthrow its leadership. 
When He has done this there will be just as much ignorance and 
evil as before, but it will be routed, diffused, and leaderless. He 
cannot annihilate evil, but He can reduce it to a maximum of 



THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITH URIEL. 79 

inertia. A personal, selfish, malignant Devil cannot exist. 
It would have too many antagonisms below, around and above 
it. God cannot prevent the existence of evils, but He can pre- 
vent their combination. Hence there is no such thing as the 
"spirit-of-evil" in the sense of a personality. Evil is lonesome, 
disorganized, solitary and desolate. It is slowly and constantly 
becoming more enlightened, and, rising in the scale, growing 
better and better through the ages, as stratum by stratum with 
a constant uplift it gets into a brighter sunshine and a higher 
life. There is no room and no possibility for a being, or a com- 
bination, having a tendency in the opposite direction. The 
buoyancy of the current will bear such irresistibly upward. 
There being no personal devil, and no tendency downward, there 
is and can be now no "Hell," so called. The slag and cinders 
of its ancient fires have been, long ere this, covered with a blue- 
grass sward on which the bright-eyed children of Progress are 
in multitudes at play. 

Sec. 72.- — God. If progress and improvement are continuous, 
then, in the lapse of time, perfection will be more nearly reached. 
If progress and improvement are constant factors, some one 
atom during the flow of an eternity will have achieved supremacy. 
God is a natural deduction from progress and eternity. Given 
immortality, progress, and time, then some one atom must be- 
come supreme. 

The doctrine that there is no Supreme Being has no sanction 
in logic or philosophy. If an object is moving continuously 
in a given direction, and toward a certain point, it will arrive 
there, in course of an eternity, no matter how slowly it may go 
or how far off the point may be. In the great race, which has 
been going on so long, one atom has outdistanced all the rest. 



80 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITHURIEL. 

By virtue of this He holds an office, a position, which we, in 
our language, call God. Behind Him are a vast number who 
constitute a class which we may call a " close second " ; and other 
vast numbers are in a myriad of ranks behind. But this Su- 
preme Being is not omnipotent ; He can do more than any other 
one, more than we can even dream of his being able to do, but 
He cannot do everything. He is not omnipresent ; if He 
were everywhere He would be everything. But, He can go 
wheresoever He pleases. He is not omniscient. He knows 
more than any other one, and more than we can even dream of, 
but He does not know everything. He will know more and will 
have more power as time goes on, and He will be more supreme, 
in that sense, than now, because He also is making progress, 
and eternity is yet unspent. He has no cause to stop. He is 
the fortunate one who commands at the head of the column. We 
are all going in the same direction; we may each hope in time 
to get nearer to the front. In the infinity of time we may over- 
take Him; we might, — but it is an ambitious dream, — we our- 
selves might get near to the head of the column. Nothing but 
constant effort and constant progress can keep our present 
leader there ; and it is a legitimate exercise of faith and aspira- 
tion to try to overtake Him, to achieve the supremacy and be 
the leader, and maintain it, if perchance we may. He started 
even with us when we started ; He started as humbly as we did ; 
the road is open to us, and eternity is not yet one-hundredth part 
consumed. Can we overtake Him? It is an idle but delight- 
ful dream. 

[end of preface.] 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 






THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITHURIEL. 

Ithuriel said : 

Once upon a time I was an atom, whirling through space. 
I have been chief of an Ion. I have been king of a corpuscle of 
light; it was composed of more than ten thousand atoms. I 
have been a crystal time and time again. I have been a spore, a 
fungus, a lily, an oak. I have been a bee, a bird, a beast. I 
have lived in the air, in the water, in the earth and on the earth. 
I have been all kinds of men, from the lowest to the highest. I 
have had a million mothers, from molecule to man. I have been 
a savage, a cannibal, a pagan. I have lived by the chase, I have 
praticed law, I have commanded armies. I have been mur- 
dered, have been drowned, have committed suicide. I sailed 
with Argo; was burned in the circus at Rome. 

Afterwards, while enjoying a very happy earthly existence, 
I was killed by an accident. Here there is a hiatus. It may 
be a year, it may be a hundred centuries. We take no note of 
time that lies behind us. We do not miss the space during 
which we sleep. I lost myself. Was I eaten? Had I been car- 
ried away? Was I indeed asleep? What had happened.? 

2. 

It is a pleasure at times to leave memory behind us. The 
earth may be likened to a convict colony. All are under sen- 
tence there for a definite time or until reformation. We are 
released upon good behavior. But first we are shackled. Our 
souls are fastened to a block of clay which holds them down. 
If it breaks off, another is fastened on, and we wear it until we 
are fit to be reprieved. This is, of course, only an illustration. 

(83) 



84 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITH URIEL. 

We are permitted to go only when we are fitted to leave the 
earth and are entitled to the promotion. When we do go we 
leave far to the rear our hates, our shames, our vain regrets, 
our meannesses. We go where the angers and revenges of others 
cannot follow us. The debts we owed cannot pursue us. We 
retain our experience, but it is not coupled with a memory or a 
pang. We hold our education, but it is unburdened with a sor- 
row. Memories are unimportant when we go to a place, and to a 
condition, where they are wholly irrelevant. Hence when we 
leave the earth we leave our memories behind us, but we may go 
back and trace our pedigrees if we wish. 

3. 
After my life on the world, as I said before, there was a 
hiatus; but, whatever its length, it was immaterial. What I 
do know is that I woke up in a beautiful world. I was a child; 
I had just been born. Time and years passed; I received and 
listened to instructions. I found out that the latter part of 
my former life had been spent upon the earth, and I began to take 
much interest in that planet and to study it. Strange were the 
mental faculties of the members of the race into which I had been 
thrown. They had a sixth sense — they could read each other's 
thoughts. As we go upward we grow into the possession of 
additional faculties. It is a delightful world where each one 
knows what the other is thinking of, and knows that the other 
knows it. It does away with envy, hate, and malice. These 
cannot exist without being seen, as in the clear sunlight; and 
they are blasted by the light. Hence it was a happy place where 
I was then newly born. 

4. 
My new parents took care to instruct me. They told me 



THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITHURIEL. 85 

that I was then in the constellation El Moran ; that the sun and 
earth belonged to this constellation, but were so far away that 
the sun was only visible as a star of the smallest magnitude. 
They told me that I could go to the earth, but that it was like 
traveling through a long and barren desert to visit some far-off 
oasis. 

We did not do much talking — we just thought at each other. 
We used spoken words only when we wished to be emphatic. 
On the planet Algomar, where we were living, the inhabitants 
w r ere very numerous, and in shape like human beings of the earth, 
only larger and more finely formed. They were engaged in daily 
occupations, were constant and active workers, and were always 
talking about fitting themselves for a higher existence. There 
was a great rivalry among them to know, to learn and to do. 
Some were stronger, more able, more intelligent than others, but 
there was a feeling of fraternity among them and they all pulled 
together. 

5. 

The people of Algomar were long-lived, a thousand years 
or more (as reckoned on earth), and they had time to accumu- 
late much knowledge, which each was willing to impart to all. 
Some families had more than a hundred children. There was no 
margin between the population and the supply of food, for there 
was enough for all. The air was an entirely different compound 
from that on earth, and was full of life and vigor. All believed 
in a glorious immortality, going up step by step, and death was 
considered a matter of course and contemplated without dread. 
The forces of nature remained true and unchanging, but the 
power of mind seemed to control them ; for instance, the force 
of gravitation, as it is called, existed, and all were bound by it 



86 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITH URIEL. 

except when they willed against it. Every person had the power, 

by a strong effort of will, to overthrow or neutralize the force. 

Hence by an effort of mental energy each was free to go as he 

pleased from planet to planet, or from star to star; but could 

not leave the constellation. Each could go to any part of it, 

and there were those who had traveled much, although travel 

was dangerous. Many lost their lives thereby, for they have 

death there as elsewhere. They could, by a mental endeavor, 

free themselves from all attraction or attractive inherency, and, 

by a powerful effort, go where they willed as with the rapidity 

of light. 

6. 

The people of Algomar always traveled from place to place 
in the current of the rays of a star, as if along a beaten high- 
way; that is, they traveled in the highways of greatest light. 
There were many who could travel without danger, or suffering, 
but there were many more who could not. To many, such trips as 
these were full of pain and peril and were beyond their range of 
steady will. A few others could go where they pleased. The 
inhabitants of El Moran weighed practically nothing, yet they 
were not weak or ethereal ; on the contrary, they were powerful, 
vigorous and active. When one of them went from place to 
place it was, in weight, but the transfer of a feather ; in power, 
it was the moving of a giant. They were light in weight be- 
cause their food was volatile; they had no bones or grosser 
formations; they were each simply a collection of atoms held 
in place by will, and consent. They could be as flexible and 
ductile as mist, or, at will, as firm and inflexible as steel. They 
could change their forms by will the same as an actor in a play 
could impersonate another. Each one could assume his own 



THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITH URIEL. 87 

form of beauty and each one was beautiful in the degree of his 
own thoughts, the mind arranging it. 

7. 
While this power of assuming shapes at will exists, it is 
seldom used, because no one can be deceived by it, owing to the 
fact that every one can read anyone's thoughts ; so no one would 
make the change for purposes of deception. Anyone could, how- 
ever, at will change himself into the outward form of a bird or 
an animal, and immediately again at will resume his former shape. 
All could walk where they pleased; they were almost tireless; 
they could fly wliere they pleased, — not with wings, for they had 
no wings, but by mental effort. They wore clothing to ward off 
the light on which they to some extent fed. It was cleanly to 
wear clothes. Their temperature was that of their surroundings ; 
they could travel and live anywhere where there was light; it 
was a sufficient but not a strong food. 

8. 
The form of government on Algomar is democratic ; politics 
and public duties are quite simple, since everybody can read any- 
body's thoughts. After I had been in public life several hun- 
dred years I was detailed by the sovereign of the nebula as a 
messenger, and became used to traveling, and was sent on many 
a message to the Earth, principally to report its condition to 
headquarters. In one sense we looked upon the Earth as a 
garden where was slowly developing and growing a valuable 
crop. The Earth was watched as a farmer watches a growing 
field of wheat. Having been through an existence on Earth, I 
was pleased to revisit it. They told a story about me and Adam 
and Eve which was incorrect, yet quite true to life. Adam and 
Eve came before my time. The stoiy is a very, very old one. 



THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITHURIEL. 



The story ran that the Devil visited the Earth and tried to tempt 
Eve ; and that I interfered. Thus— 

Him [the Devil] there they found 
Squat like a toad, close at the ear of Eve. 

Him thus intent, Ithuriel with his spear 
Touched lightly; for no falsehood can endure 
Touch of celestial temper, but returns 
Of force to its own likeness. Up he starts, 
Discovered and surprised. 

9. 

The story about Adam and Eve, as I heard it told, is about 
as follows : 

It was determined to improve the grade of beings on the 
Earth. It would be a benefit the same as it would be to improve 
the grades of wheat or cattle upon a farm. The higher the 
quality the better food. The Earth was densely populated, but 
had become fitted for something better. Adam and Eve w T ere 
introduced for that purpose; they were not the first human 
beings, but were the first white beings. This was not difficult; 
almost anyone living in the upper realms may be born at will 
on the Earth. All they need do is to condense themselves into 
a point, come down to Earth, enter some human being and effect 
their own birth. It is being done, by order, from time to time. 
The fact that a man can be born of a virgin is not uncommon nor 
unreasonable ; it has been known, at times, to have happened. 
Married women have thought they had children born of heaven. 
Women as well as men have come from the upper realms and 
have acted their parts in the great drama on the stage below. 
Many have been born on Earth who have had the distinction of 
having first been born in Heaven. There have been marked 



THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITHURIEL . 89 

eras when the Earth seemed to have had, upon its intellectual 
soil, the sowings of celestial seed. It is martyrdom for those 
who come ; and disappointment, for they are controlled by con- 
ditions ; — but the grade of the human harvest is constantly im- 
proved. Adam and Eve were placed south of the Caucasus, in 
what was then the best and most civilized part of the Earth; 
and their descendants settled that portion and spread far to the 
west and south and became known as the Caucasian race. The 
story is that a mythical person, the Devil, appeared to Eve in 
the form of a toad and whispered in her ear; and that I ap- 
peared and with my spear touched him and made him assume 
his original and upright shape. 

10. 
This story of Adam and Eve as stated is not accurate; it 
happened before my time, but I have no doubt that something 
like it happened. The placing of Adam and Eve on the Earth 
was a well-known fact at the time; persons were not unfre- 
quently visiting the Earth from our constellation, any one of 
whom could have assumed the form of a frog or any other ani- 
mal, and could have talked to her. I know of no such person 
as the Devil ; he, w T hoever he is or was, told her the truth, as it 
then was. If I had been there I could have read his thoughts, 
penetrated his disguise, and would no doubt have notified him 
of the fact, and he would have known what I thought about it 
and would have come out of his disguise. The story is truthful 
enough in point of possibility, but not so in fact. 

11. 

For a long while my duties were those of an aide-de-camp. 
I was sent hither and thither to get and report information. 



90 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITHURIEL . 

There were in our constellation thousands of worlds which had 
to be looked after. They were like islands in the sea: some 
of them were hard to reach. Some of them were worthless. 
The earth was a barren little island, mostly covered with salt 
water. The productions of these island-spheres was a matter 
of necessaiy attention. They were like farms or distant patches 
of land in cultivation. They required care and attention. 
From them came some of our principal food products. It was 
our duty to keep improving and bringing up to a higher grade, 
the productions of these places. We did with them the same 
as a farmer on the earth would do with his flocks and fields — 
we supervised them. We transplanted from one, earth to an- 
other to improve the product. It was always a constant fight 
between the lower and the higher, between the domesticated 
and the aggressive immigrant. Hence the number of overseers, 
or aides-de-camp, was very great ; it was hard and dangerous 
work. 

12. 
There were many in our celestial sphere who had lived on 
the earth and had philanthropic wishes and aspirations. Their 
notions were to benefit and exalt those above whom they had so 
greatly risen; those whom they had been associated with, but 
had excelled. These higher souls occasionally, as missionaries, 
went to live and work among those below. It was anything but 
pleasant work, but was of incalculable benefit to those whom 
they visited. These missionaries to accomplish their purposes 
were obliged to leave their surroundings, happy as they were, 
and go to the earth and be there reborn, leave their memories 
behind, leave their happiness behind, and spend their lives in 
strenuous and often fruitless efforts to improve and benefit those 



THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITHUR1EL. 91 

for whom they labored. These efforts were mostly beneficial, 
but the benefits often came late and at great cost and suffering. 
Some of these earthly visitors were men and some were women ; 
many of whom were afterwards appreciated and called "Saints." 
Some there were who made several visits. 

13. 

I am at present an archangel ; that is, a supervising messen- 
ger. I have certain territory, and I send out messengers (angels) 
as ordered, supervise their work and consolidate their reports. 
It has become so that I very much like my work. I am at home 
about half of my time. The place where I live on Algomar is 
beautifully located ; we have no cities as such, we have no police 
system, and no want of safety. All live where they please, be- 
cause they can go as they please, when they please, and as 
quickly as they please. They can call each other up by thought. 

It is not easy to describe the landscapes and vegetation in 
any understandable way ; for instance, magnetism is a substance ; 
rivers of metallic magnetism, like quicksilver, flow down through- 
broad valleys. There is, near where I was born, a tree over half 
a mile through the base and twenty-five miles high ; it is of cop- 
per; its bark is a sulphite thrown off in the growth. The cop- 
per has been educated apast its former life-habit of forming mere 
fixed angles of crystallization, and has become skilled in the lore 
of vegetation and is now composing and building trees. 

14. 

My wife is a most beautiful woman; I was married to her 
once before while on earth and I think twice before that, but as 
to the latter am a little hazy, — but she says three times. She 
has located some of her former children and is happy over it. 



92 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITHUR1EL. 

We have many children by our present marriage; as to former 
existences in other and distant spheres, they have stories and 
memories of their own. My neighbors are genial, kindly and 
wise, and have plenty to do with their children and affairs; 
each puts in a fair portion of his time in making others happy. 
When each is devoted to making all others happy, each has enough 
to do. Of course there arc among us those 4 who are ambitious; 
this is well known to all, because we each read the others' 
thoughts; but as there are those who are wiser than others, 
some are allowed the sway of their ambitions more or less; so, 
among the communities there are those who exercise authority 
by concession. 

l.K 

There is one thing that always, as in the spheres below us, 
at all times confronts us, and that is death. In the first place, 
we cannot of our own will leave our constellation. We can at all 
times by an effort of will overcome that power in the constella- 
tion called "attraction," but by no effort of will can we leave 
the constellation. Death comes sooner or later to all. The 
ruler of our constellation is no exception. His desire is, as we 
all know, thru the constellation shall progress and be a better 
and better place to live in. We are taught that on our deaths 
we may go to a higher, better and more perfect life, in a grander 
and better constellation. We are taught that there are above 
us, higher and grander forms of life and existence to which we 
may attain. But we are taught that no one can or will leave 
this constellation until fitted, for the next. This is so here on 
earth, wliere men are born and born again until they have reached 
that mode of life and thought that may be likened to satiety. 
When men have been born and born again upon the earth and 






THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITHURIEL. 93 

lived lives until they have seen the shallowness and emptiness 
of its vanities and follies, and want something better, then only 
are they qualified for promotion. As long as they are willing to 
continue in the race of avarice, or the scramble of worldly ambi- 
tion, then so long are they of the earth earthy, and so long will 
they stay, and by so much slacken their speed in progress toward 
the goal. Xo one can be sent up higher until he is fitted to go. 
This is a self-imposed and self-inflicting punishment. Most 
men will not be promoted, because they will not allow them- 
selves to be promoted. Thus the unworthy do not leave the 
sphere of Earth for a higher plane until by self-imposed effort 
they have procured the soul-equipment for the higher plane. 

1G. 

As on the earth, so in the place where I live : there its people 
are born and born again until they are fitted for a still higher life 
on a still higher plane. 

AVe know as little about what is above us as the people of 
the Earth know of what is above them. So all of our teachers 
teach us. I do not know whether I am fitted for a higher plane, 
because I so much enjoy the one I am in. I probably am not. 
I am so much satisfied with my present existence that it may be 
long before I care to change it. I am inclined to suppose that 
there are missionaries among us from higher spheres, but I have 
the same inertia as the human race seems to have on earth ; I am 
complaisant. Perhaps I am yet too fresh from the lower orders ; 
I have already lived in this one life in these beautiful surround- 
ings more than a thousand years, and wish I might ten thousand 
more; I am not ready to leave it, at least not prepared in my 
mind so as to be willing. 



94 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ITHURIEL. 

AYhen I look around and see how many I have excelled in 
the race, and how far I am ahead of those who may have been 
my earlier associates, I have the mental inertia that asks no 
change. 

My autobiography is the autobiography of a brief and suc- 
cessful career. I will be back soon again; on my next visit 
will tell you more about it; there is now something special 
which I wish to say — [this, being private and personal, is 
omitted.] 



II 



IAK 



: ^l!w 



